Public Amenities Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this biweekly meeting of the South Platte River Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the discussion as the South Platte River Committee starts now.

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This is the South Platte River Committee of, April 22. I am councilwoman Jamie Torres. I represent West Denver District 3. Let's do introductions before we go to our rezoning, and I will start to my left.

Good afternoon. Darrell Watson, district nine.

Good afternoon. Madison Van Vaughn, West Denver District 1.

Laurel Vidres, Lucky District 7.

Madame San Juan, Southwest Denver District 2. Thank you all, and thank you for the aroma of popcorn.

And it's not burnt. It's like glue and burn. We

do have council member on Zoom, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself, please. Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, SE Denver, District 4. Perfect, you so much. We have just one action item today, nothing on consent, So I'll turn it over to Abner. Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you all for being here. I'll try to be respectful of your time and keep this quick. So Abner Ramos Altedo with Community Planning and Development, here to present the rezoning for 361363 West Evans Avenue. So the request is to go from IAU 02 to CMX 8. The property itself is a pretty large site that's 60,000 square feet and or 1.385 acres.

Currently on the lot, there are some single unit buildings and just surface parking. Location and context. This property is located in Council District 7, represented by councilwoman Alredros, which is present. It is in the Overland neighborhood. And the current zoning, as previously stated, is I a u o two.

It's surrounded by a variety of uses, but as we look east, it starts to become more of a mixed use or multiunit zone districts. The purpose of the CMX 8 Zone District is to promote same active and pedestrian scale diverse area, primarily two to eight stories and the building forms that are allowed are the townhouse general and shopfront building forms. This is a table that visualizes what I previously stated for the allowed building forms that are townhouse general and the shopfront for the CMX 8 Zone district. The land use the land use is aligned with the current Zone District, so it's an industrial use currently. As we look east, it's still industrial, but it starts transitioning towards single unit, two unit, multiunit.

Similarly, there is a mixed use and a office use to the east of this on the same to the east of this property just east of the block. The building form and scale, so existing conditions. So on the top left, we see the property itself for the large surface parking lots and a lot of the single story buildings that are there. To the south, just crossing Evans, we see some of that mixed use and higher height development that is happening near the Evans Station area. The process so far to date, so there was informational notice that was posted on the property within the ten days that are required.

So that was posted on February 6. Planning board notice was sent out March 30. We had our planning board hearing last week on Wednesday, 04/15. And planning board voted unanimously to support this application move forward. We're currently at council at committee and hopefully tentatively going to city council on June 1.

We have not received any comments from the RNOs or from the public at this time. The only comments we've seen are those that the applicant was able to collect during the engagement process. For the review criteria, the three review criteria that we're gonna be looking at are consistency with the topic plans, public interest, and then consistency with neighborhood context, zone district purpose, and intent statements. Starting with comprehensive plan twenty forty, this rezoning is consistent with a number of the strategies and the vision elements for comprehensive plan twenty forty to increase housing, near transit, to promote infill development, and to ensure a mix of housing types and services. Looking at Blueprint Denver, it's consistent with the feature neighborhood context, is urban center.

That's what the c stands for in the CMX 8 zone district. The future place guidance is community center, which is appropriate up to 12 stories. This property is requesting eight, so it is consistent there as well. The future place future street type is commercial arterial along Evans, and it is consistent with the requested zone district to provide some commercial uses. And the last map from Blueprint Denver is the growth area strategies map looking at it being mapped as community center and corridor, which is anticipated to accommodate 25% of housing and 20% of employment, which is consistent with the CMX eight zone district.

Lastly, we have the Southwest Area Plan, which was recently adopted about a month ago now. So the future place guidance and the future neighborhood context remain the same. The land use framework map designated this area as a high intensity mixed use area. These areas will see the most growth in housing and jobs, so it's appropriate to have the CMX eight. Similarly, there are land use and bill form recommendations regarding housing centers and corridors.

And then lastly, looking at the centers and corridors designation, this should be providing a design that's vibrant for commercial centers and corridors. Given that this given that this request is consistent with the adopted plans, it is in public interest. And then lastly, when we look at consistency with the neighborhood context, zone district purpose and intent statements, it is also consistent with the contact guidance that says that it should be generally multi residential and a mixed use commercial center. Similarly, it should activate and promote a pedestrian scaled diverse area in the public street edge. With that, CPE recommends that the committee move this application forward for consideration by the full city council based on finding all review criteria have been met.

And I'm open to questions. And the applicant property owners are also here.

Oh, great. Thank you so much. Yes. Councilwoman Obidades will start.

Thank you so much. Mhmm. Thank you for that great quick presentation, getting to all the important details. I appreciate that we have this plan now to provide that guidance. And my question may be for the applicant, but I'm just curious. Is there is there access from this site to the light rail station?

There is. Yes. Along Delaware Street, it's goes under Evans and has direct access to the Evans Station.

Great. And then my understanding, can you do you happen to know where the Jewel Bridge will also land?

I don't think I have that

Okay. In this Not super crucial, but just wanna point out the transit oriented development nature of this. So it makes a lot of sense to me. I'll be supporting in our parking lot

Would you mind coming up to the microphone real quick? Just so we can catch you.

In order

to talk

Yeah. So

from the property they can't mute where the bridge is gonna go and this is Jewel right here to the north. It is two or so blocks to the north. It'll be right here. Wonderful. You can see my cursor.

And then I guess just one more question for the applicant, if you don't mind coming up and introducing yourself, is what are the plans for the land, or do you have plans for the land?

My name is Steve Jessam. I'm the owner, and that's my wife, Nancy. My my plan for the property is to get it rezoned and sell it outright. And I'm looking for a certain price.

Great.

Well, I I went through rezoning ten years ago.

Mhmm.

And at that time, they said there was a plane that was sufficient to go all the way up to CMX 12. Mhmm.

And and instead now? We're at

CMX 8. Correct. The the view plane guidance has a height limit for this site at a 141 feet. The requested CMX 8 zone district has a height a maximum height of a 110 feet, so they're well below the maximum height allowed in the view plane.

Wonderful. Mhmm.

Great. Well, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. You.

That's all I have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much. I don't have folks in queue, but I do have one question, Abner. I'm looking at the Southwest Area Plan, and there's one recommendation around language on commercial centers and corridors. So just help me understand, like, the difference in in what I'm hearing. Blueprint says it can go up to 12 stories in

this

location. This one, though, says buildings in community centers and corridors identified as high intensity mixed use areas should generally range from one story up to five. How how do we how do we, like, reconcile those two things?

I believe when we're looking at the South Of Starry plan, I was trying to reach Verano earlier, and I think there was, like, an omission of a future place because I think it's a regional center and then community corridor and it doesn't have the community centers. And the community centers is the one that would state that it needs up to 12 stories. And then based on engagement with councilwoman Albedrez and then the community, I believe eight stories was deemed appropriate for the site.

Okay. Got it. Thank you. That just helps me understand. I think the two, they're obviously not going for tomorrow on this one either.

Yes. Council president Sandoval. Just wanna make a comment in the on legislator, the community outreach just to the applicant. I appreciate you walking the neighborhood. I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes in is people rely on email and then rely on these volunteer boards to go out and walk the neighborhood, and that's just not feasible. And so I appreciate you even though those mailers went out. I read that you actually walked the neighborhood and people remembered you from the last time.

Yes.

I'm so sorry.

I that because that helps us here do our work to ensure that we get oftentimes told that those mailers get lost lost and snail mail doesn't work. And I always am like, well, why don't you go out the neighborhood? So I appreciate you doing that.

You can talk you guys. Yeah.

We've been there since '19 We've been there twenty years. Yeah. Twenty years. So I know all the neighbors. And I still know well, the neighborhood was about I can't remember. There was an across the alley from us, there was a number of little old houses and some some people lived there. But I used to have everybody over to our we have a pretty good sized meeting room. So I you know, ten years ago when we were talking about this, they all would meet at at my place, at our place. And, you know, I mean, I knew there's some of the neighbors I don't know now. I mean

They changed. Definitely changed.

Yeah.

But thank you for doing that. I appreciate that.

Sure.

And thank you. You're welcome. Appreciate having a plan adopted and implementing it right away. Like, that's the magic behind having an adopted plan. So thank you for that.

Yep. Of course.

Thank you, madam chair. Great.

Thank you so much. I don't see pro tem queuing in. So with no one else in queue, is there a motion? I'll move. Thank you. A second. Thank you. Is there a need for a roll call? Nope. We're good? Okay. We'll see you on the floor. Thank you, Abner. So thank you all. And with that, we're adjourned. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you. Good job. Abner, I'll see you tonight.

Yes. I'll see you tonight over for the advisory committee. Yes.

You so much.