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.

You just said she'd be late.

Okay. Hi, everyone. We can't get started until we have quorum. So we just have to sit tight for a minute. Sorry. Because we only have action items. Oh, Councilmember Cashman, I see you online, but we still don't have quorum. So we need one more person. So let me try to track down our president. There they are. Hi, sorry. Oh, we need Coral. If you could take the slide down, producer, for a minute, that'd be great. All right. Welcome to community planning and housing. Now we have Coral so we can get started. We have one action item in front of us, a rezoning, and then we have one briefing in front of us. But before we get started, let's go online and then we'll start around the room.

Good afternoon, Paul Cashman, South Denver district 6.

Thank you. Council member Cashman and then right me.

So I'm told it was district 8. Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4. Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

And Councilman Sandvall, Northwest Denver, District 1. And now I'll pass it over to Community Planning and Development. Awesome, thank you. Lucy Glick with Community Planning and Development.

I will be presenting the rezoning at 2246 North Federal. So first we'll talk about the request, then the location and context, followed by the process, and then finally the review criteria. So the applicants are requesting to rezone from a mixed-use three-story district with the active centers and corridors design overlay or the DOH to a five-story main street district and then maintaining that DOH. So the main change is just an increase of two stories. So the site is currently a Montessori school and they are the applicants as they are the current owner, but they are planning to move to a different location that will better suit their needs. And so then a developer is proposing to construct a multi-unit residential with commercial on the ground for a structure. And the building has received a certificate of demolition eligibility already. So now we'll discuss location and context. So this is in Council District 1 in the Jefferson Park neighborhood. As stated previously, the current zoning is general urban mixed use three stories with the design overlay eight. There's a lot of mixed use zoning along federal, but then it's two unit directly to the south and then multi-unit directly to the east of the site. So the purpose of the proposed zone district, which is urban main street five stories, is that it applies to collector or arterial streets. It's supposed to be applied linearly and where a building scale of one to five stories is desired. And the building forms that are permitted are the townhouse and shopfront, and that's due to the design overlay aid that will be carried over. So the current land use is public quasi public because it is a Montessori school. And then there's a lot of single unit to the south, mostly multi unit to the east, and then some commercial retail and office along federal. So you can see the school is on the top there. It's kind of that painted red brick building. And then there's some town homes directly to the east. And then there's some of what the single unit looks like to the south. That's just that faces federal. So, just kind of put this into context. There is bus rapid transit proposed for federal Boulevard, which I know you all are very aware of and they're currently working on the final design construction testing is kind of occurring next year through the next several years. And then with service, hoping to begin in 2030, and I believe there is a stop proposed right at 23rd in federal. which is like at the intersection. This site goes from 22nd to 23rd. So this site is right by a future bus rapid transit stop. So now we'll discuss the process. So this application was complete back in June. I went to planning board in August. We're here before you today for the committee meeting and it will go to a vote of the full city council in mid-October. So far we've received quite a bit of public comment. So 47 neighbors have provided comments. I think there's about maybe 52 comments total, but we received two comments from multiple people. So we received nine comments in support, citing consistency with the criteria and just seeing more investment along Federal Boulevard. But most of the comments have been in opposition citing parking concerns just with the city's requirement of not having a minimum parking requirement and that there's not enough affordable housing being provided. So the applicants are planning to do to provide enough affordable housing to get that increase the height incentives to allow up to seven stories on the site. But some in the community feel that they should have to do more affordable housing in order to get the seven story increase more than what our code requires. There's also concerns about a step down from seven stories to the lower scale residential. But I will note that the two unit district directly south is a protected district. So seven stories, they can't have seven stories across the whole site because of that. It's really just the northern portion can be up to seven stories. The southern portion will have to be up to just 75 feet, which is about five stories. And then several would like to see like a construction management plan. And then some of the newer comments that came in closer to planning board were more based on the review criteria and how it didn't meet, you know, they didn't feel that it met a certain point within the near Northwest area plan, which I'll discuss here on the next slide. So the planning board item, this went to planning board on August 19th. the board did vote unanimously to recommend approval of the rezoning, but there were some points raised during deliberation and the public comment. So a lot of the commenters, there's this one policy in the near Northwest area plan that a lot of the public mentioned and then planning board kind of responded to it, but it's L5C and it talks about the reuse of institutional or when institutional buildings are vacated, that we need to ensure that they're used for community serving purposes in the future. And some of the language in that is when the historic user leaves, then that building should become a community serving use. And this piece was not so cited in the staff report because from staff's perspective, we didn't really feel that it was relevant us and then planning board kind of agreed that this really more applies to structures or historic users that the building is built to be an institutional use. So like a DPS school, for example, that the enrollment's low, it closes down. How should we reuse that school? which did happen in near Northwest Columbia Elementary closed. It's now an ECE school, which is exactly in line with what the plan guidance is. This was built as an industrial building. So this was, it was a bakery at one point, maybe like an auto repair shop or something. And then it's been adapted to be used as this Montessori school. And the language in there says historic user, which like if you go by our landmarks terms, historic is generally about 50 years. This school has been there for like 35 years, I think. So that's why staff didn't really feel that this section is what this site was meant to be by this section. That is really more for when like churches close and zone single unit and we need to figure out a way to how to reuse them rather than a building that was not built to be an institutional use. So now we'll move to the review criteria. So there are three review criteria that needs to be met in order for rezoning to be approved. The first is consistency with adopted plans. The second, it needs to further the public interest. And then third, it needs to be consistent with the neighborhood context zone district purpose and the intent statement found in the Denver zoning code. So you can find more about how this rezoning meets the strategies in the comprehensive plan in the staff report. So I'll just talk about Blueprint Denver and the Near Northwest Area Plan today. So the future neighborhood context in Blueprint is urban. The district being proposed is in the urban context. The future places is community corridor, which allows for a mix of uses and heights generally up to five stories. Federal is a residential arterial. The growth area strategy is community centers and corridors, where we anticipate to see 25% of new housing and 20% of new employment. So allowing an additional two stories will allow for growth on this site. And then it also furthers this, General Policy Strategy A in Denver, or in Blueprint Denver, where it talks about encouraging higher density mixed-use development in transit-rich areas, including community corridors where transit priority streets are planned. So federal is a transit priority street. This is a community corridor designation. So this is where we want to see more higher density uses. And then this application addresses equity by increasing housing, including affordable housing near transit and services. And then it also addresses climate by allowing housing and density again near transit, which may make this area less auto dependent. So now moving to the near Northwest area plan, I won't discuss the future neighborhood context or place type as that's the same, but there's a height map within the near Northwest area plan, which calls for up to five stories for the base height, which UMS five allows a base height of five stories. And then the plan talks about up to seven stories with incentive heights and the UMS five zone district allows up to seven stories in incentive heights. It also furthers a couple of the strategies in the plan. So again, similar to Blueprint, this talks about how community centers and corridors should accommodate the most growth, creating opportunities for affordable housing and other community needs. which again this is a community center and corridor so this is where the most growth should occur within the near northwest area and then it also talks about that in areas where the recommended base height is more than what the current zoning allows so when an up zoning is proposed that elements of a complete neighborhood should be provided and that we should consider individual agreements until a broader solution is available And the plan lists elements of a complete neighborhood to include, but not be limited to, affordable housing, active ground floor uses and culturally relevant businesses, historic preservation, enhanced streetscape and open space, and then design quality. So, staff has found in our analysis that, you know, a lot of these tools for that broader solution have already been implemented, which is why we don't have any individual agreements for this rezoning. So, for example, affordable housing, the city passed expanding housing affordability, which does require a certain number of affordable units, especially if you want to go up to get that additional two stories. Councilman Sandoval sponsored a rezoning to map the design overlay in the near Northwest area, including this property. So that's why we feel that that active ground floor component of the complete neighborhoods is met. The enhanced streetscape will come with the bus rapid transit. That's going to bring a lot of improvements along federal Boulevard. For historic preservation, this site has already been determined not to be historically significant because it has received that certificate of demolition eligibility. And then for design quality, again, the design overlay eight was already mapped in this area, which has stronger design standards along the primary street. And then there's another recommendation in the Jefferson Park section, which talks about how, again, community centers and corridors should accommodate the most growth opportunities and how those areas specifically within Jefferson Park include areas along Federal Boulevard at intersections with 26th and 22nd Avenue. So this site is right at 22nd and Federal. So it's where the plan is calling for the most growth to occur, which is why we feel that it's appropriate to go up just those two additional stories. So this rezoning also furthers the public interest and that will bring more density close to transit as well as furthering Denver's adopted plans. And then finally, it's consistent with the urban neighborhood context, the purpose of the main street zone districts, and then the specific intent of the UMS 5 zone district. So finding all three review criteria have been met. Staff recommends this be moved to a vote of the full city council.

Thank you. Thank you, Libby. We have a couple members in the queue and then I'll go after President Romero-Campbell and Council Member Alvarez.

Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for the presentation.

I think you addressed it actually I put my name in the queue when you were talking about the historic nature of what the business is that's provided there. I mean, 35 years, significant time. It's not 50. But I think that that being a resource within community, especially for child care and in the broader context of this need for child care, to have that not be a consideration for either of what goes in place, and did I understand that correctly? Maybe, let me ask it this way. When you said that if it had the historic significance, what would that mean for the location? It couldn't be housing, or it would have to include something that does address?

So, we were reading, so the piece of the, I should pull the language up, but the section of the plan basically talks about that when there's, it's about institutional uses, And how when those institutional users that there needs to, it says, ensure that it becomes a community serving use. And the way that staff and planning board agreed that the intent of that section was really meant for, like when an old church vacates their church building, that that should be more for community uses and maybe not necessarily for... a use that was in a building, this building wasn't intended to be an institutional use, it just happened to be adaptively reused that along the way. And so not that this use isn't important, but that that section doesn't necessarily apply, that it has to be this. Community service, the deal will ensure that there are commercial uses on the ground floor, but the uses listed are. It could be education again, for example, and we don't necessarily have a way to guarantee that I've become an educational use in the future. But I think the intent is for it to be a community serving. You know, whether that's retail and there will be affordable housing, which is also, you know, kind of a community serving user can be seen as that.

Thank you. Are the owners here?

The applicants are here. The owner is the Montessori School. They're the applicants, but the developer is acting on their behalf. I will say the Montessori School included a letter in there where they want to leave. They have a site that can better serve their families. I guess most of their families don't actually live in this area, from my understanding. They're moving closer to where their families are.

Do you have a question? Yeah, so do you have a language because it's specifically created for I have put it in there churches were leaving and we couldn't put that for housing and other things so never did we think that an industrial old cinder block building would be interpreted as a historic institutional use were very sad to see Morning Star leave but they had to adaptively reuse this building. They didn't build it and now their new building in Lakewood will be built for Montessori children and for the Montessori way of teaching. This was not. It's a cinder block building and we're sad to see them leave. And once again I have declining enrollment in Northwest Denver because people aren't having kids.

Yeah. Will I'll get back in the queue because I think you answered one of my questions, but thank you.

Councilman Avidez. Thank you. I appreciate all of the information and the context for the building. I just was Google mapping it, and it looks like the DO8 will have a better walkability for that area, which I know is a big goal. And it's a very walkable area, except for this building. One thing I did notice looking on there was a mural. Has that been part of the conversation of documenting it or anything? I don't know. That might be a question for the applicants. Is the mural still up? It was on Google Maps, and it looks like a very beautiful mural.

It is something that's up for discussion right now. The Federal Boulevard Business Improvement District has done a lot with murals and public art on Transformers. We're working with them on a GNA now as well, and we've discussed a mural high level.

Great. I appreciate that. Overall, the project sounds really great. I think we definitely need more housing in this area. It's a very desirable area to live. But those are my only two questions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Sawyer. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Libby, how does this work with the State's Home Act? With the what? State's Home Act. Because this is a property that's owned by a nonprofit organization that could build on this without having to rezone it. under the state law?

That's a good question. I don't know how. I'm not sure. I would have to look into that.

Maybe they're not trying to stay owning it.

That's the point. I don't know where they are in the sale process. That's the point.

Okay, so the reason I'm asking is because there's a state bill to pass and I can't remember the number off the top of my head right now. Flint, can you remember the number off the top of your head right now? No? Okay. It passed in this past session. It's called the HOME Act and it allows for nonprofit organizations to build without having to rezone on or to sell to allow to be redeveloped without following our zoning code at all, which has been a bit of frustration for me as a person who believes very much in local control. However, like that's the point of this. That was the point of home, this exact moment right here. So I'm just curious whether, maybe it just isn't in effect yet. Maybe it's- Number 31st, 2027. 27. So we have one more year before it actually goes into effect, which is why, and you guys want to rezone it before then. 26-1001.

Thank you. I so appreciate you. That was close. Yeah.

Okay. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Yeah.

That was it.

Memory.

I have a question for the applicant. If the applicant could come up or whoever is on behalf of the applicant. Can you talk to us about your community outreach and what you've done within the community and who you've met with and just give us a picture of the community engagement?

Peter Wall here on behalf of the applicant. So there are a handful of different RNOs that cover the area. Bear with me, a lot of acronyms. So there's a Jefferson Park United Neighbors, JPUN. There's a Jefferson Park Neighborhood Association, JPNA. There is the federal BID. And then lastly, we have the Sloan's Lake Citizen Group, theoretically is across federal to the west, but we've also interfaced with all four of those R&O groups. We've done a handful of presentations and had conversations with the different respective zoning committees. We've been to a couple of board meetings of the federal BID. We presented at JPUN's zoning committee. We presented at their regular meetings twice. JPNA, we've had multiple conversations with their leadership. So as Adam Lample with Kennedy-Wilson mentioned earlier, we're in the midst of kind of I'd say at the 11th hour at negotiating our GNA with both JPUN as well as the federal BID. We've been going back and forth on terms with them. We just traded paper again today, but I think we're pretty darn close, and hopefully we'll have that all buttoned up by the time we come before you for our public hearing.

level of the terms, nothing that would be confidential, because I know you're super high level.

Yeah, the terms are anything from guaranteeing a certain amount of square footage on the on the ground floor, which as Libby mentioned, the do eight, as you know, all too well, the do eight already does. So committing to think our minimum that we're talking about right now is 75% 100 square feet, although we're planning on more than that. So it's anything from that. We're going back and forth in terms of transparency requirements and design requirements on the three different facades, both the federal facade as well as 23rd and 22nd. The federal BID and JPON would like the opportunity to be able to meet within the building once and if and when the building gets built. So providing them with some community space to be able to host meetings, things like that are within the GNA at this point in time that we're negotiating.

Thank you. Appreciate that. No other further questions. So I sent it to President Romero-Campbell, but in the Near Northwest Plan, it's called the Land Use Five Recommendation. And what it specifically says is ensure that institutional sites such as schools and religious centers are reused for community serving uses when their historic users leave. And that's one of the reasons why I was proactive with the design overlay eight along this corridor is I had had conversations with Family Star that they were expanding beyond their ability to fit in that building, that their type of schooling Montessori, they had to constantly adaptively reuse that building to work around. But interestingly enough, C1, it says for, institutional sites directly adjacent to regional and local BRT and bus priority corridors allow housing types consistent with high, medium, residential closer to the corridors and adjacent transit stops. And that's exactly what we're doing. And in the community, there's been a lot of conversation about the developer using the expanding housing affordability height incentive. That's not what we're doing here. We are rezoning to they are asking us to rezone to five stories. We don't get to opine on the project. If they do build the project, that will be great. It will have a community benefit agreement with the developer and the business improvement district and the registered neighborhood organization. But what we're asked to do in our as land use commissioners, does this meet the plan guidance for what we're being asked to go to CMX5? So I believe it does. There's several people in my community who don't. And interestingly enough, just so you all know that when this goes before city council, I always do my best to not have contentious reasonings. The two people who are really not in support of this were the two people who were on the neighborhood plan. but I asked to be on there. One is my predecessor, Councilman Espinosa, and one is the head of the neighborhood organization, Michael Gates. And we didn't have high participation in Jefferson Park. We had low participation from the people who lived within Jefferson Park. We actually had people fall off the neighborhood planning initiative. And I went to them and said, we need Jefferson Park at the table to be part of this plan. They were 100% part of the plan and now they're saying that they're feeling bamboozled that the plan is not actually planning. I would disagree because I was part of that and I believe our plan is producing the results that we want to see of having residential along the BRT and in this area. It should be known that the owners don't have the gas, the Car wash. Car wash, thank you. That's not part of it. So there is still going to be that historic car wash use on the corner of 32nd, 23rd and Federal. But this has been a lot of talking and negotiating and I would not bring something to you all without full confidence that this meets our neighborhood plan because this neighborhood plan I fought for and worked on for 22 months of my life that I can never get back. Has anyone who knows been a part of a neighborhood plan? So, Council President, do you have any other questions now that you have that wording in front of you? And I can send it to all of you as well.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And that's helpful. It was one of my pauses of like, I know that we're not looking at what the use is, and I'm not suggesting, I think it's actually a good use to go to affordable housing. And I also realize that it's in the future of whatever goes there that they do consider more than just studio apartments or one bedrooms, but that they do have like two and three bedroom

apartments or you know units available so that families can move in or in that you get more diversity in the in the folks that are living in the neighborhood so yeah I wish all projects created even two-bedroom I have a friend who her and her husband are looking for a three-bedroom apartment and they can't find them anywhere they're really really really and So anyone who's in the business of building apartments, you might want to think about building three bedroom apartments. Because as we have water restrictions, people want to maybe move into apartments. But that's off topic. Are there any other questions or comments from my colleagues? All right, seeing none, can I get a motion to move this forward? Councilman Torres, second by Councilman Sawyer. Everyone good? All right, we'll see this on the floor. And Libby, remind us when the public hearing is. October 19th. Yeah, make for a little bit of a longer night.

Thanks for the warning.

All right, seeing no other action before this, we'll move to our briefings now. And we have a really great briefing coming up. No risks. Regulatory Reform Implementation and HUD Pro Housing. Thank you. I'll pass it to our partners, Community Planning and Development. And if you'll just both introduce yourselves, the floor is yours.

Brad Johnson, Principal City Planner with CPD. Paul Donegan, Senior City Planner with CPD. And we also have Aiden Hoke in the audience, who's also involved in this project. Take it away? Yeah. Just went fade to black on me.

Uh-oh. There we are. Okay, not bad. I want to go down to the slide. There you go. Right there.

Just in the top corner there. That'll make it full screen. There you go. Thanks, Luke.

Thanks, Luke.

Okay. Well, thanks for having us today. Here to talk to you about a project that we're very simply referring to as regulatory reform, which is a series of initiatives we are looking to undertake over the next two and a half to three years focused on our zoning code as well as our urban design standards and guidelines. And so I'm just gonna walk through some of the kind of background and high level elements of the project overall, and then Paul will spend some time talking about the details of what we're referring to as package one, which is the first component of the project in terms of sequence. So, just backing up a little bit, hopefully you guys are aware of this, but if not back in 2023, the city was fortunate to obtain a grant from HUD from federal government for 4.5Million and implementation began in 2025 on that and the pro housing program and you're seeing other cities around the country. with this grant as well, pursuing some similar initiatives. But overall, the grant is focused on removing barriers to housing, and particularly affordable housing, through regulatory changes and staffing increases. And so in Denver, the regulatory reform effort is kind of under that umbrella, as well as other projects you'll be familiar with, with unlocking housing choices. There's also an infrastructure gaps analysis effort that's gonna look at Trying to better zero in on where we have infrastructure gaps that are maybe making it more difficult in certain locations to build housing. So that's being scoped out right now. And then another key element of this grant is going towards supporting additional staffing for affordable housing review team. So focusing in on regulatory reform specifically, the goal here is all about trying to remove low value regulations where we feel like they're there but they're not gaining us a lot in terms of outcomes and clarifying, simplifying, streamlining both regulations themselves and process while at the same time trying to advance plan objectives around customer service and other land use objectives and support other city initiatives. So, for example, there we're spending a lot of time with our partners in different permitting office, because this is a lot of overlap with the goals of that group. While we're trying to do all that, we're also trying to make sure that we're not losing our focus on quality outcomes, be it urban design outcomes or land use outcomes, et cetera, that we are always calling for in our plans. And through all of this, of course, the emphasis being on, per the grant, removing barriers to housing. And so backing up, I guess about a year here, prior to getting started on this work, the city undertook what was called a regulatory diagnostic. And we essentially invited a national team of firms that specialize in zoning to come in and essentially lift the hood up and look under the hood of our zoning ordinance and our design standards and guidelines. So that involved technical analysis of the elements themselves as well as a lot of outreach both internally to people at the city that utilize the code as well as customers, applicants, developers, designers, so on and so forth. And coming out of that, I'll mention there, that also included an online survey that got a pretty good response at 450 responses. And all this culminated in a document that's available online now that includes 70 different recommendations that really serve as the starting point for this entire regulatory reform effort. And so you can find that online on the text amendment website, I believe is where it is. And we can get that to you if you need it. So I just... Wanted to maybe take a moment and just acknowledge kind of the evolution of some of you guys familiar with this. Maybe all of you are, but obviously back before the 2010 code, which I'm sure you guys know all about in here about all the time we had more of a conventional zoning code. So it's looking at land use separation, building height requirements, setbacks. Things of that nature in 2007, I think we did start to introduce some more design oriented, meaning urban design, place, making oriented requirements into the code for certain areas. And then in 2010. We did a full redo of the zoning code to create more of what's sometimes referred to as a form-based code, which essentially just means it has a bigger emphasis on building forms and trying to get the right design outcomes in the right places. emphasizing the relationship between buildings and the public ground, streets, sidewalks, things like that, and being very conscious about context sensitivity, I think more so than the previous code. I will say you hear that term form based, but our code is not a pure form based code, right? We still have land use regulations and permitted uses and non permitted uses. But nevertheless, as you're creating something like this, and really. Experiencing a paradigm shift, frankly, and regulatory structure with a new code of this nature, the tendency I think I've observed in my career working elsewhere. And I think most people that work on codes would agree. There's a tendency to kind of overdo it when you do a lot of new stuff. Right? And so I think we've, we. We got a much better code that answered to our plans back in 2010, but obviously it also resulted in some complexities as well. And so now we're 15 years post adoption of that 2010 code. We had a chance to really evaluate it, including bringing some outside help in there. We have a lot of people that have been at the city for a long time. handful that have been been through the whole life of this new zoning code and so we can kind of look back at it now and say what's working what isn't working what's not kind of giving us bang for the buck and where can we streamline and clean up things and processes and such to help our customers and ultimately again address those barriers to housing that we talked about So as we look at those 70 recommendations, there was probably 10 to 15 of them that were focused on kind of like single unit context or duplex context, things like that. And so Unlocking Housing Choices project was already sort of addressing those design elements. We kind of shifted those handful of recommendations over to Unlocking Housing Choices. What was left over is what you'll have in the regulatory reform project, which we've broken down into a series of packages. 2 kind of miscellaneous amendments and then an urban design focused amendment as well as some other non zoning improvements that we're considering within CBD. So I'll talk through those very briefly. But the package 1 is our focus today. That's the 1 that. that we are trying to get completed by early spring 2027 is the current goal. Package 2 and the urban design package should be reaching out a little bit further and then some of those interagency regulatory efforts that we're going to be working with DOTI or DPR on because they're also involved in development review even though it may live, some of those things may live outside of the zoning code, will take a little bit longer to work through. So package one is really kind of targeted near-term regulatory and process improvements. I guess you could say it's kind of low-hanging fruit but collectively they're not all small things. They sometimes individually will have a big impact on our review process and then collectively will as well. These are things where we're trying to avoid like big policy changes with these They're more kind of internal to the functionality of the code. We're able to, we think, build strongly on that prior engagement that we conducted either in other planning processes or for the regulatory diagnostic. And again, that's where we're shooting for for package 1, a adoption of spring 2027. Package two is gonna get bigger moves, more complex. So I wanna mention, I missed something there. On package one, we're thinking this could all be accomplished through a text amendment to the zoning code. When we start to get into package two, there's gonna be more complex things. We're gonna be doing more rigorous outreach where we need more input, we think, building on what we already have. Some more significant policy changes under consideration here. And a couple of examples. So we have tons of zoning districts, as you know, I don't even, I don't know the number, but it's lots of zoning districts. And we think that there might be some opportunities to consolidate and condense those. We also have really long land use tables of tons and tons of uses. So we see another opportunity potentially there to consolidate and streamline without losing the objectives of the code intent. And then the 3rd that I want to mention is this urban design package. So, again, that has a lot to do with kind of the interface between buildings and streets. How how are built environment shapes the experience of our residents, our visitors and so on. And so we have. The zoning standards that you guys are well aware of, you're just talking about a couple in the last case regarding transparency requirements, things like that. We also have urban design standards and guidelines that apply in many areas of the city. We're going to be looking at procedural changes. They're trying to clean some stuff up, but also looking at. potentially new tools there, exploring some different approaches maybe that could result in better outcomes, maybe creating more flexibility in some of those rules for smaller buildings versus a large block scale building. Trying to consolidate some of those urban design standards and guidelines, integrate maybe more incentives for better design outcomes if we can, and then thinking about opportunities for alternative compliance. So I maybe don't meet the The urban design standard to the letter of the law, but I've got an idea that's going to result in an equal or better outcome and preserves the intent of the code. Can we can we find a path to approval for something like that without requiring a full blown variance. So, those are some of the ideas there and with with this, I'm going to toss it over to Paul to kind of get into a little bit more of the details of package 1.

Awesome. Yeah, as Brad mentioned, in the first package, it's a discrete number of topics here. These are the topics that we're proposing to tackle with this first package. They kind of run the gamut there throughout the code. On the next slide, you'll kind of see how we've started thinking about how they, their level of impact versus the scope of the change. And the ones that I'll walk through each with you are sort of in that upper tier that sort of are things that we've recognized as having the potentially greatest impact and some cases not necessarily requiring, you know, A huge amount of change in some cases requiring a little bit more significant change. And I'll walk through those with you all here. The first one is simplifying the height measurement. So if you're familiar with the zoning code now, we measure height both in feet and in stories. And we have heard both from applicants as well as city staff that that leads to a lot of confusion and complexity, difficulty meeting those standards. And so one thing that we're proposing is to focus more on building height for non-house scale building forms. So that means suburban house, urban house, duplex, tandem house, ADUs. Those would all still keep stories and height. We recognize that stories is a little bit more noticeable and significant in those contexts. But for a larger building, to just start thinking about them as sort of having a maximum height and feet. So as a result, the overall building envelope doesn't change because we're keeping the existing maximum height and feet. But we do think that as a result of this, there still would be, you know, potential for, I think, an additional story to fit in underneath some of these maximum height standards. We would be keeping a lot of the existing design standards that essentially require setbacks and step backs, as well as reducing the mass of buildings as they get taller. Those would still continue to operate as they do based on stories. So that actually came up in the previous rezoning application where near a protected district, the building couldn't be as tall. That sort of thing would continue. with what we're proposing. But there is a potential, I think, with the overall maximum height being in feet instead of stories for there to be an additional story created. We think that that's consistent with sort of the intention of streamlining and simplifying the code, as well as the grant funding of this project, which is removing barriers to housing. We think that it could result in some more housing units being built without changing the overall building envelope. And we also wanna make sure that that's consistent with adopted plans. So that's our intention with that one, but one that I wanted to highlight for you all. The second one on this slide has to do with the zoning permit with informational notice. We have been reviewing all the different uses that require this informational notice and identifying those where we already have standards in the code that are addressing a lot of the main impacts of uses. And so it's often resulting in us doing a noticing that doesn't result in a lot of feedback from the community or results in requests from the community for I guess like use limitations that are already required. And so we've sort of been flagging those as things that we could have a more streamlined process for approval. And then similarly, oftentimes uses or development might have multiple uses. And so that's where maybe the ZIPC, the zoning permit with special exception process comes into play. And so having a single development require both of those we're clarifying that it would just require whatever is the, I guess, the most onerous or the most highest level of review would have to go through that process. And yeah, the next item is streamlining and expanding administrative adjustments. Within administrative adjustments, it's already the things that are sort of the least impactful. It's the things that we think shouldn't require a variance already. We're looking at a way for, in certain cases, where it's extremely low impact. to have an even quicker process for getting approval so that those are things that could be done administratively. And some of the ideas for that would be reducing the amount of variation. Some administrative adjustments allow 10% variation, some allow 15%, having more consistency across those as well as with the criteria for approval. And that would also expand administrative authority where the adjustment would have resulted in additional affordable housing. And this is something that we've also flagged as needing to be updated to be consistent citywide. So there would be a bridge amendment proposed for this to update former chapter 59 as well so that we're treating both parts of our zoning consistently. And then this last page, these are actually a couple of items that have been added on since the regulatory diagnostic. I guess the first one is a request from city council specifically. recognizing that the existing regulations for temporary food trucks, and these are food trucks that are on private property and therefore subject to zoning and not on Dottie right-of-way, which has a whole different process. For those that are applicable to the zoning code, treating those more consistently in those commercial districts as well as downtown. Whereas right now, as we've gotten into it, we're like, out here, but not here. So kind of making those consistent and addressing a concern that we've heard from this group. That would also be something that would require some updates to the former Chapter 59. And then the last one that I'll highlight here is simplifying our sign code standards. And a lot of this has to do with comprehensive sign plans. Currently in the Cherry Creek North area, it would eliminate the need to do a comprehensive sign plan for projecting sign, very specific. case here and then secondarily reformatting the Cherry Creek North sign regulations to be more consistent with the rest of the code and then the last bit is actually another place where our comprehensive sign plan noticing is actually different for the theater district and National Western Center than elsewhere in the code and so making that consistent throughout just one less number to keep track of for everyone and something that staff felt would be easy enough. So with that, we'll wrap up here by just sort of highlighting some of our, you know, next steps on this one. So in addition to an informational item to you all, we'll be bringing this information as well to the Planning Board and Board of Adjustment this month, perhaps into October, depending on scheduling. And then we'll be coming out with some public Review of this, so there will be opportunities for folks to review this and provide feedback this fall. The intention would be having the formal adoption process kicking off early next year and ideally wrapping up in February March of next year.

I'll just say briefly, we've included what we call an appendix in the slideshow. Hopefully you guys have the slideshow. But similar to the slides Paul just presented on the individual items, for some of the other items, we didn't want to get too far into the weeds and be here all day. But if there's any of those you want us to go to in the appendix, we'd be happy to do that.

Great. Thank you. I have lots of questions, but I'll let my colleagues go first. Councilmember Flynn, followed by Councilmember Sawyer.

Thank you Madam Chair. Paul, when you talked about streamlining the ZPIN informational notice process, I have to admit I had a negative reaction to that. And I started thinking about people who live in the neighborhood or in a community, and when they get an informational notice, there's an awareness that something's going to happen, even if their requests for limitations fit exactly, and it just means more work for you all to do that. they have an awareness of what's going to happen. To remove that and to not provide notice, to me, creates sort of a breakdown of community, where people aren't aware when something happens down the corner that, oh, I didn't know that was going to happen. Then it creates more opportunity for conflict or division before we then get to explain, oh, no, no, that's perfectly allowed. Well, why didn't we know about it? Maybe give some more thought to, I think it helps build a sense of community when neighbors know what's going on and just have an opportunity to have input, even if it's, well, that's already a limitation, but we'll make note of that. I hate to see, people are, You know, neighborhoods are breaking down already with getting along together, and I'd hate to see us contribute to that. I don't know, maybe that's just me, but I think it's good to provide notice, more notice than necessary even, than bad. My other question revolves around this grant. and unlocking housing choices because the action plan seems to predetermine the outcome. It says basically that this will break down the barriers. And what the barrier refers to are, in my case at least, some at-risk neighborhoods, a lot of communities of color, in single-family homes that are affordable. Probably one of the more affordable parts of town is far southwest, far northeast, Councilman Gilmore's district, southeast, east. And they don't think they're a barrier. They're in an affordable part of town. And so they're kind of freaking out at a possible city-wide elimination of single-family zoning. And it looks like we accepted this grant on the condition that we will do this. So I'm wondering if either of you have an opinion on this. Are we locked into doing this?

I don't think so. I'm more involved in the grants. My neighborhoods are not about it.

Just introduce yourself for the record.

Good afternoon. Aiden hook with community planning and development overseeing the entirety of the HUD program. So I'll speak to that question. Then I'll turn it back to Paul to speak to the Z pin concerns. So the HUD program application that we put together was submitted in 2023. so, just for context, that was. 3 years ago, and so, as we were then receiving a delayed notice of award, and then there was continued delays at the federal level, a lot had changed in terms of our scoping. We also received half of our original award amount. And so, in that we had to go through a re, scoping exercise that still maintained our original award intent. Because they said, well, if you re, scope it to such an intent. You might not have scored higher than say, Dallas. I have no idea and not received that application. So, in our action plan, given what the intent of unlocking housing choices was, was to implement our city wide as well as planning guidance. That isn't necessarily the obliteration of single family zoning, but rather saying. where is it appropriate for us to introduce more housing choice under circumstances within the city? So the action plan is essentially our accountability mechanism to the federal government. That being said, I want to give the caveat that we have annual reports that we're doing right now on what is our progress towards that. The action plan is our goal. That being said, we're also already anticipating that we will be doing a minor amendment to our action plan in part because a lot of our staff here These 2 are some of them as well as 8 are all grant funded. And so, until we hired folks and knew exactly their experience levels, we knew that there was going to be adjustments to our budget. We also knew that given the impacts of staffing last year, as well as this forthcoming budget have had impacts on our timeline to implement some of these items. So the action plan is our accountability system, but it's not a predetermination of what these projects should be. But right in the same way that we're trying to accomplish it here, we are wanting to remove barriers to housing where we have, I think, clear documented evidence that the standard is either proposing a clear barrier that is not giving a proportionate benefit back to the community is really what we're looking at and wanting to evaluate with a critical lens.

Is there an annual report at this point?

No, we are drafting it right now. It is due to HUD October 1st. And so that will be posted on our website in accordance with HUD and it will essentially speak to our progress that we have made on where we are in our various action items. So we'll speak to this project, we'll speak to the completion of the diagnostic, the conversations that we've had with community and so forth.

Thank you. The reason for my concern is that I'm on the advisory committee, and the direction I'm sitting right now is entitlement on every single family lot in the city. So that's the basis of my concern, which is not consistent with any of our area plans at all, which are more location-based other than the most recent one, the southwest area plan. That's the only one that provides guidance for missing middle within existing single family. All the other area plans say missing middle should be here, there, institutional corners, transit, urban centers, corridors, things like that. And so that's why I'm concerned about the direction it was headed, given the language in the 2025 action plan, which said we'll remove these barriers.

Yeah, and once again, barriers can be anything from a setback that is creating a redundancy that forces people to consistently go to receive administrative adjustments. So I think, too, when we think about barriers, it's not saying, hey, you're constraining the supply of housing and therefore get rid of it. I'm not saying that our action plan is telling us to take a libertarian and saying that zoning has no place. It's saying, where is zoning not adding value to the overall character design and scale in such a way that it's purely prohibiting housing choice and affordability that we want to be continuing to promote in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Councilman Sawyer. Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks, you guys. Really appreciate you walking me through prior the Cherry Creek stuff with signage. That was a very technical term. I am... So a couple of things. I am... a little bit concerned that, um, some of the regulatory things that you've talked about here are more, uh, will end up being more, um, like of a hot button issue than you anticipate them being. I think the Z pin is a big one. because of the notification requirement. I think Councilmember Flynn was right and spot on in what he said, right? But I do think that there are a lot of places that we see as Councilmembers where we run into things that are extending time, thus extending costs, you know, all of those kinds of things. And it's things like a vacation taking, you know, 6 months or 9 months to get through that's dotty issue. Not a cpd issue, but like, you guys are working with daddy on this. I think right. Um, we know we have, um, serious challenges when it comes to tier 3 encroachments. Because we, what we see a lot of in district 5 is people building without permits at all and then getting busted and then having to come through and ask for a tier 3 encroachment and then it gets super messy and the neighborhood organizations get involved. I mean, we have 1 that we've been working on right now since January. It's September. Right? So, um, there are just, I think a lot of the sign plan amendments, like. The value of a comprehensive sign plan, I can see where it used to exist. Why does it exist at all anymore? Right? Um, what is the city's. Like, real value and whether we put up a, you know, a business owner puts up a flag in front of their business that. Frankly, we have businesses all over district 5 that do it anyway, even though it's not a part of their comprehensive sign plan and nobody makes them take it down. So it seems like there are just spaces here where they're. There's opportunity for real action that you guys aren't talking about here. And then one or two spaces here where I think the action you're talking about is going to be a lot more hot button and you're going to get a lot more negative response than what you think you're going to get. So I just want to flag that for you as you continue to have this conversation with us because I think it's really great. It's time for us to go through our regulations and have these conversations for sure. I just worry that you're not focusing on some of the low-hanging fruit opportunities that we have that we see all the time in our offices and are focusing on some of the other things that are not going to make as much sense to change in the end.

Thank you. Go ahead. So on the ZPIN one, I guess I just heard a couple comments about this, so I just wanted to say it's not to get rid of ZPIN on every single use across every single district. It's more of a scalpel approach where we can look at each one of those uses in each district and ask a question of our reviewers, folks that are involved in that. Is this one pretty much always getting approved? Is it ever getting changed? Maybe we overestimate the impact of this and then applying a similar kind of scrutiny to medium where we, in fact, are saying we're finding this and someone's like, no, this one needs to stay z-pinned. So I just want to be clear. It's not like cutting that tool out completely. And so we'll be able to, in the draft, Have a more more clarity about which ones we're looking at and which districts so that we can kind of scrutinize them and you guys can't.

Yeah. Can I just respond to that? I think that's great. I will say, like, for example, when I came into office in 2019, it was required to get a zip in every time someone wanted to put an 8 foot fence in instead of a 6 foot fence.

Right?

That was ridiculous because it was granted every single time, but it added cost because of the length and time to the project because you had to go through the Z-PIN process. We already fixed that. Right? So we fixed that in a text bundle in 23? I think so. 23, I think it was that text bundle. So, it was the same 1 as the carriage houses. That's what I remember. Yep. Uh huh. So, um, I think, like, we've already done some of that and, um. I guess in doing that texted bundle. Update in 23, I thought we had already addressed most of that and that what was really left in the code were the issues that really matter and are very unique and do require a very in depth look into what exactly is going on there. So to hear that maybe that's not the case is a little frustrating because that should have already been done. That piece of it, I guess, um, so I appreciate it. Maybe some specific examples when you guys come back with more, um, you know, with kind of more meat on the bone that will give us a little bit. More understanding of the direction that you're heading and why, um, because. I will say, like, that should have already been fixed.

Okay, we'll follow up with that group too because I think they're still hearing the folks that we're working on on that one. So we'll educate ourselves about the past conversations. I appreciate that.

Okay, thanks. Thanks. So to stay on the topic of the Z-PIN, the reason why I'm going to push back on that is the Board of Adjustment doesn't have the same people on it. And so it's open for interpretation as we have new board members who are on there. So when I first started at 14 years ago, like a dinosaur sometimes here, we saw things that came through consistently for the Board of Adjustment that were denied, denied, denied. Then I remember one time I went to my council member and I was like, this just got approved. And we were like, what? And the makeup of the board was different. Three people had gone away. And three new people came on the board. And then we saw something that was consistently being approved. And then I worked for a different council member. And then I saw this new trend. And I was like, oh, man, this is consistently being denied and then councilman kanich and i overhauled the board of adjustment to actually give administrative um the administrator the zoning administrator more oversight then we actually put in training for the board of adjustment then we actually made them look have to do training for our adopted plans we if if one of our adopted plans in blueprint number is tree canopy we gave them the ability to actually give an adjustment like a variant for a tree If affordable housing, and Aiden, I think you worked on this for us for expanding housing affordability. If affordable housing was one of our priorities, we needed the zoning administrator and the board of adjustment to be able to give a variance for some of these complex sites that were being able to have affordable housing because they were consistently being, the variance wasn't being granted. Because they're really hard deals. They're usually odd parcels of land that get affordable housing, which is, not, it's society, right? All the good land goes towards these luxury things and then what the remnants are left over. And so then we updated the whole entire Board of Adjustment and actually pulled a lot of it, the majority of it, out of charter because every time we wanted to update it, we were going to have to go to a vote of the people and moved it over to ordinance. So as somebody who like spent more time on the Board of Adjustment that you would ever wanna know and like decommissioned the entire board and had to reseat the new board and created recommendations of who should be on the board, what type of background do they have, I am less interested in simplifying the zoning permit with informational notice. And the reason why is right now there is a process that correlates with group living that in the zoning, Z-P-I-N, you have to have a community information meeting if you're getting a certain type of zoning permit. And so I actually think that you learn a lot. I've learned, like you all three know that I love zoning. I've also loved zoning because I've sat in those Board of Adjustment meetings. I wrote letters for my council member. I monitor them. Some of the best conversations I have with my team is like, hey, did you see this developer? Who knew he was going to go, like it was a self-induced conflict, right? And he's going for a variance. And we're like, well, we hope they don't get it because we knew the whole entire time that they were going to build their air conditioning in the side interior setback because we saw it. So that gives me pause because we just did that big update. And I don't know if there's been enough case law from the time that we've done that whole update of re-sitting the Board of Adjustment, going through the whole entire board process, taking it from charter into ordinance to be able to say, should we now, again, simplify the zoning permit process? Because Councilwoman Knish and I spent a year and a half trying to do exactly what you all are doing through adding it to, from taking it from charter to the zoning code. And had I known you all were thinking about this, I would have probably given pause and been like, maybe we shouldn't put it in the zoning code, because now we can just amend it with 13 votes. And that was one of the things that people came and cautioned us about moving the Board of Adjustment from charter into the zoning code, that now it could just be easily amended. And now here's the first time two years later I'm seeing it. So I'll just give that for food for thought. And then the other parts of the package I'll need a briefing. And if you asked me for a briefing and I said, no, I'm sorry, I probably didn't understand.

No, we're not there yet.

What this was about. The other part that I'm interested in knowing about is the sign, the signs that you're talking about, because would it impact like McGregor Square had to come and redo their whole entire sign. Ball Arena right now is coming forward and having to do their signs. the women's soccer is gonna have to come forward. And I'm gonna say, I am not one to just give sign availability to every developer who wants to have one because the Broncos, I mean, I can go down the whole entire, issue and in my interpretation of signs sometimes i would prefer a mural instead of a sign and so i don't know exactly what kind of update you're giving to the sign so i'm going to probably have to dig in on a lot of that um Because I'm really, as you can tell, I'm very interested in signs. I've had to spend a lot of time on signs. And again, the Board of Adjustment can actually give you sign variances as well. The one that I'm interested in is I'm glad, because I know I've been a little harsh, I'm glad that you're using feet to adjust for ADUs in houses. Thank you. Because I have what's called the Denver Heel. And so I have parts of Northwest Denver, it's called Highlands, right, because it's on a hill, where when we use the bulk plane, man, it causes a bad, really super, like if you have a slope, I remember working with Denver Housing Authority, and we could not figure out where it started, where the base plane, not the bulk plane, sorry, where the base plane started. And we got five different accounts from community planning and development. Five. Of where the base plane would start and I was like, oh, my God, how what's happening and they showed me how they did the calculation and I was like, that's insane. So, thank you for simplifying that for housing, because if we really do want accessory dwelling units in our city, we do have to simplify some of that. And then the next one, again, I'm gonna be cautious about any administrative adjustments. Tina Axelrod was a huge loss to our city. I could call Tina and I could have really great debates with her and be like, all right, Tina, I'm going to press you for this information. And then she'd be like, all right, sound ball, I don't know the answer. Let me get back to you in a couple weeks. And she and I would go back and forth. So giving administrative adjustments does help. I understand where. But to your point, it has to be a scalpel. It cannot be a broad brush approach because, if anything, then everything's going to start getting updated. I agree with updating former Chapter 59 because that's all the Green Valley Ranch. That's a part of Montbello. And sometimes they feel left out because they're in former Chapter 59. Northwest Denver, the old Elitch's site is a former Chapter 59 PUD. So they aren't awarded any of these. So I totally get that bridge process. And then I would just ask that you reach out to all my... Council members, because this seems like a really huge package. Like even, I'm gonna get into the nitty gritty with you all about the floor area zoning definition and how we're gonna try to figure that out and like what, what we're using, how we are going to figure that out. But I will say that I have talked to Tina Axelrod. I remember when I got interviewed for this project, probably like in the spring, Tina was like, you have to interview Councilwoman Sandbaum. And I was sitting down with the interviewer there like, how do you know so much about this? And I was like, It makes sense to my brain, the zoning code, because it's one of our land use commissioners. If you find something that doesn't work, go in there and fix it, right? I found Tennyson was being ground up for residential because the Performer works better because of Tabor and the way we pay our taxes, that it actually costs more to have a business. So I created the design overlay. I saw gentrification happening in Sunnyside, so I created the extravaganza, the Sunnyside extravaganza. And so I thank you for digging into this, because when we adopted this type of zoning standard, it's supposed to have these set up to have this regulatory update so often. And what happens is we don't spend the time or energy. And to your point, Aiden, we didn't even get the money we asked for. So you could have even done a bigger overhaul that you all know. So you all know actually the egregious things that are in our zoning code or things that are like prohibiting development. And I bet you all are like so disappointed because you're like, man, we're just getting the tip of the iceberg because we probably didn't even get all of the money that could have been awarded, have the man in the White House, occupying the White House, giving it to us. So that's a whole different thing. But this is really... a lot of work that I've been asking for and I've been wanting to know for a long time. So I'll have my staff, Melissa, dig into this so that I'll be better prepared. And if you can do me a favor, if you can get me that information before our briefing, it will go much faster than me sitting here for 20 minutes going on and on and on because then I can have more specificity and ask better informed questions to dig in on where I like these things and ultimately I don't. But one question I do have is ultimately this would have to come before city council for adoption, correct? So we are looking to adopt it in Q1 of 2027. So before then, we'll have several different touch points with council members as the package gets redefined and as language gets defined because as we know, we all vote on a package. These are like ideas and I'm gonna be like, okay, the devil's in the details in this package because it's a really big package.

Yeah, no, I have to do a briefing with with anybody who would like 1 on it. We do have a little. Like a 3 pager on this that we are, we shared with planning board as as required for our info item with them last night. So it'd be helpful tomorrow night. Sorry. I'd be happy to.

Yeah, if you just CC all city council members on that, say you're following up from community point of housing and you couldn't even throw the chair sound ball under there, the zoning wizard wants to be shared with everyone. But in this situation, I would say ground us in information, because if not, by the time it comes to our residents, if they're not able to speak to it in a comprehensive way, especially constituents in Northwest Denver, who I've done all the overlay extravaganzas with, they happen to know that I love this stuff, then I'm not able to be well-informed. But I really do think that you all are actually doing what residents want, is trying to cut the red tape. That's what I hear this package doing is you're like, hey, developer, you said that this is an issue time and time and time again. And now we're trying to deliver on that. But sometimes people just don't quite understand that because I, as their ambassador, am not informed on it. And I can't speak on that. So the more information you give me and my staff, the more information I'll be able to digest and turn it into resident speak not planner ease because a lot of this people don't even understand what the base plane is or understand transparency or even understand as a sign code or understand how that even impacts their everyday lives right but it does the these are the these are the meat and potatoes that actually make a city All right. Any other last comments, questions? Thank you all. Thank you. I look forward to having you come back and working on this. I think there's one consent or two consent agenda items. Seeing no other further business, this meeting is adjourned.