| District | Name | 3.A. Many neighborhood residents feel that their input is gathered only after development projects have been planned and approved. Do you support reworking the Neighborhood Planning Initiative (NPI) process to allow for greater input from residents at the planning and approval stages of neighborhood development initiatives? Yes/No | 3.B. Please explain. |
| 1 | Amanda Sandoval | Yes | Not sure how to get more input from residents, in my district we have not had the greatest community engagement. I am open to thinking outside of the box and figuring out how to make the NPI process more user-friendly. I have fliered all 4 neighborhoods with my own office budget and hosted community meetings and still, we have lower engagement in the NPI process. |
| 1 | Sarah Truckey | Yes | Absolutely. Often Times it feels as though policies and decisions are made for us instead of with us or for us. Collective input is critical to ensure outcomes for community. |
| 2 | Kevin Flynn | Yes | When I organized my community BEFORE the Loretto Heights campus was bought by a developer, after the college closed, we already energized the people to come up with a vision to present to the eventual buyer. As a result, the Loretto Heights small area plan had the largest public participation of any small area plan. |
| 3 | Jamie Torres | Yes | I supported dedicated neighbors working with Community Planning & Development to publish the West Area Plan that is reflective of our call for equity and justice and partnered with nonprofits like Colorado Jobs with Justice to reach residents who are typically hard to reach. |
| 4 | Tony Pigford | Yes | I’m open to ideas on finding more holistic ways to include more types of people in the community planning process, which often favors people who have the spare time, money, or knowledge to participate, leaving many working families out. Among the values of the NPI, we can also keep in mind the possibilities of community ownership when we think about equitable values, and how an ownership stake ensures community input remains at the table beyond the planning stages. |
| 5 | Amanda Sawyer | Yes | We have seen how valuable resident input can be. I’ve been a part of two NPI processes now and it is vital that neighborhood voices are heard. They help identify issues of concern that City planners don’t even know exist. I think the issue isn’t with the current NPI process, it is with the site-planning process with the City. Residents generally can come to consensus during an NPI process because it speaks in theoretical terms. But when a real development starts, the underlying issues of concern come out. Where, exactly, is ingress and egress going to go? Where, exactly, is trash going to be collected? How, exactly, are existing residents going to be protected from privacy issues? These things aren’t decided in the NPI process, or even during the rezoning process; they’re decided in the site planning phase, and that is what needs to be changed. |
| 5 | Michael Hughes | Yes | Denver does not have a viable system for seeking neighborhood input when it can have real impact – rezoning processes ignore transportation, neighborhood planning processes take too long and wear out participants, we don’t use planning processes to integrate citywide needs with neighborhood concerns and we do a terrible job of dealing with historic preservation before there’s a demolition permit application |
| 6 | Paul Kashmann | Yes | After the current round of NPI plans is complete, CPD plans to do an assessment of the NPI process to date. In addition, I am awaiting in the coming weeks results of the study I was able to get funded to assess the feasibility of creating an Office of Community Empowerment that would have as one of its main goals to faciitate resident involvement in their own governance. |
| 7 | Nick Campion | Yes | At the end of the day, these are their neighborhoods and they have every right to provide input on plans that will affect the neighborhoods, their lives, and their commute. |
| 7 | Adam Estroff | I believe that the NPI process is fundamentally broken. It’s impossible for the city to complete the necessary NPIs within the allotted cycle, and the endemic delay in the system means many neighborhoods are and will continue to be out of date with their plans. If the city is asking for resident feedback, there needs to be a clear path as to how that feedback will be incorporated into policy changes. The NPI program has failed on these counts and I think it should be paused while the city catches up on implementing the community vision from Blueprint Denver. | |
| 7 | Guy Padgett | Yes | As a philosophy, I believe that processes like the NPI must be examined on regular intervals. Communities change; people’s needs change along with them. The same public input process that worked for our residents 10 years ago may very well no longer work as families grow and people take on new responsibilities. Recently, I looked at the East Central Area Plan, adopted in 2020. Thousands of Denverites participated in this initiative, which sensible called for responses to homelessness, street-level public safety, historic preservation, housing affordability and improved climate resiliency. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to draw a line from this laudable process to any concrete results that would justify the extraordinary amount of time and care our neighbors committed. Rightly or wrongly, outcomes like this have undermined people’s confidence in the process. Neighborhood scale planning may not achieve ideal outcomes at the level of individual developable properties, but neither should it sit on a shelf gathering dust. Reworking the NPI process would be a healthy way to ensure we have more holistic input from a broader segment of our neighbors. |
| 7 | Arthur May | Yes | Ultimately, the residents are impacted so we need to be more intentional about including them in the comment process. |
| 8 | Shontel Lewis | Yes | I’ve always said those who are closest to the pain should be closest to shaping the solutions. The best way to receive community engagement that lasts and creates a long-standing impact, is to involve residents from the beginning of planning stages. |
| 9 | Candi CdeBaca | Yes | Honestly, the NPI initiative has not been studied for unintended consequences. In a study of my own neighborhoods, NPI processes are followed by rampant gentrification/displacement. I would like us to PAUSE the NPI process until we know what we are creating and until we commit to neighborhood plans being the DOMINANT plan considered in rezonings. Right now any plan of often 2-5 can drive a change in a neighborhood no matter how recent an NPI. |
| 10 | Margie Morris | Yes | neighborhood residents are important partners in guiding Denver’s growth and development! Residents know their communities best and what is needed. Having on the ground input on what should or should not be built, what infrastructure is needed, and what would retain or improve the quality of life for residents is invaluable insight before any contracts are signed |
| 10 | Noah Kaplan | Yes | I grew up in Central Denver and have built deep connections with each neighborhood in district ten. I care about ensuring these neighborhoods have a voice at council meetings. The more community engagement that allows for clear channels for residents to advocate for the desires and needs of particular neighborhoods and for residents to voice concern and support, the more trust and collaboration between the city and stakeholders as Denver grows. It is vital that we include all impacted voices and that the city takes responsibility for developing in alignment with the values and needs of its residents in particular neighborhoods while providing the necessary infrastructure and housing for a growing city. The diversity of housing and land use in District 10 is one of its greatest virtues. Let’s build on that model and create tailored neighborhood planning that acknowledges this need. |
| 10 | Shannon Hoffman | Yes | Community co-governance is a cornerstone of our campaign. My decision to seek the D10 City Council role actually grew out of a series of community workshops that I have organized and facilitated over the last two years called “How Shit Gets Done in Denver.” These workshops are spaces for neighbors to learn about how our local government operates and how to influence it. An effective and trustworthy Council Member not only listens to constituents, but legislates and advocates for the priorities of the people they represent. I want more transparency and accountability in local government and more opportunities for D10 residents to get involved and have their voices heard. I will achieve this in more formal ways (e.g. advisory committees and meeting attendance), but also informally to proactively meet people where there are with regular outreach events, newsletters, social media, and more. I welcome a wide array of ways we can engage community members in authentic and genuine ways that build trust. I believe we should leverage new tools available to us, especially those online, that bring about broader participation in community engagement processes. |
| At-Large | Sarah Parady | Yes | I believe in co-governance principles for city planning, where groups across the community can meaningfully participate, and too often Denver’s planning processes fall short of an authentic co-governing approach. I support taking a look at our process and searching for ways to engage all members of the community in the plans that affect their future, especially for working families. |
| At-Large | Marty Zimmerman | Yes | In most communities in Colorado, when there is vacant land or pending development, the neighbors are asked for input at the start of the process and then the City asks for bids from developers to meet those needs. In Denver, this process is backwards which is why many neighborhood residents feel that their input is ignored…because it is. The NPI is insincere and ineffective because our current City Council has the authority to ignore area plans (see the buildings in Cherry Creek for example). What I would like to do is change the reporting process. The City is required to hold a certain number of community meetings regarding each development, but the outcomes from these meetings and the input that the neighbors are sharing are not reported in detail in the recommendations made to City Council. I would like to change that fact and require the reporting to provide more details on the neighbors’ input so that they are not just based on quantities, but also on the substance of the input. I also want developers to provide impact studies that will communicate the impact of development on traffic, neighborhoods, public resources (fire, police, health services, etc.), taxes (if it requires a Metro District), the environment and health, before meeting with residents. |
| At-Large | Penfield Tate III | Yes | One of the most common complaints I hear from neighborhoods is that development is being done to them and not with them or for them. Far too often, the city conducts outreach and meetings simply to confirm decisions it has already made in lockstep with developers. This needs to stop. If the city and developers want support for projects, honest, transparent, and open engagement with all stakeholders must occur at a far earlier stage in the process — not after approvals have been granted and plans submitted. |
| At-Large | Jeff Walker | The Zoning Code identifies uses that are allowed in the various zone districts. I think the public input for uses, design, building envelope, etc. should occur through text amendments. Any person or business involved with development should have a reasonable expectation of a schedule. If the use is allowed and design review are not an issue, the development should proceed. Otherwise, developments from garages, to ADUs to new residential units (which the city sorely needs) could take additional months to develop. In the meantime, interest rates will fluctuate, the labor pool will change, delivery schedules will likely extend (assuming recent trends continue). Construction shortcuts will likely be taken and minimum viable solutions will be offered, more so than now. |
