INC ZONING AND PLANNING COMMITTEE MINUTES – MAY 21, 2016

By Michael Henry

Chair Margie Valdez convened the meeting of the INC Zoning and Planning Committee and introduced City team leaders of the large citywide planning efforts just beginning: 1) Caryn Champine and David Gaspers of the Community Planning and Development Department working on the update of the 2002 Blueprint Denver Plan; 2) Courtney Levenson and Dody Erickson of Parks and Recreation working on an update of the 2003 Game Plan and Emily Snyder and Cristina Evanoff of the Public Works Department working on an update of the 2011 Denver Moves Plan and a new Denver Transit Plan. There will be citizen task forces for each of the plans and collaboration among all city departments. The goal is to develop a 20-year vision for Denver’s land use, transportation and parks in order to get ahead of Denver’s fast pace and pains of growth. Most of the existing plans are 10 – 15 years old. INC members who will be on the task forces include Joel Noble, Margie Valdez, Brad Cameron, Rosemary Stoffel, Geneva Hooten and Cindy Johnstone. A full list of the task force members will be posted soon.

The planning process, which has not yet begun, will collectively be called Denveright. Information can be found at www.denvergov.org/denveright, including ways to get involved. There will be website/social media engagement as well as different community meetings for each of the plans. Each of the plans will include implementation and funding strategies. Consultants have been hired, after a competitive selection process, to help with technical analysis and support for each plan. The presenters said that the plans will “be driven by community engagement first.”

Gertie Grant strongly urged that the public meetings should allow a real exchange of ideas where all can listen to each other instead of just “stations and stickies” meetings. John Van Sciver commented that all of the plans should be “driven by the idea of great neighborhoods.”

Andrea Burns of Community Planning and Development addressed comments from last month’s Zoning and Planning Committee regarding re-inspections of roof repairs resulting from last year’s massive hail damage. A few months ago there was a backlog of 5000 roofs needing re-inspection, which is now down to 3000. Due to the backlog, the city has allowed private inspectors (approved by the city) to perform the re-inspections. They may set their own rate and property-owners can choose to hire one or not in order to speed the inspections.

David Engelken and Bob Hickman of Humboldt Street Neighborhood Association and Kim Nytes of Curtis Park Neighbors spoke about their efforts to combat a little-known section of the zoning code, which exempts small lots (6250 square feet or less –a typical 50’ by 125’ lot) in certain districts from providing any parking whatsoever for new construction. Kim spoke about such developments at 31^st and Downing and at 28^th and Welton in which 2 adjacent small lots are being proposed. David and Bob spoke about 2 adjacent small lots, where existing buildings have recently been demolished (and large street trees removed) at 1570 – 1578 Humboldt, where a total of 108 apartments plus a restaurant are being proposed, with approximately 4 parking spaces. They have calculated that there are approximately 4200 similar small lots citywide that could be eligible for the parking exemption, mostly in commercial mixed-use districts adjacent to residential neighborhoods. Bob said that surveys of Portland, Oregon, where small apartments are very popular, show that 60% of the residents of small apartments have cars. The developers of the Denver projects seem to believe that the residents will not have cars. The Denver neighbors do not believe that, at least until there are more reasonable transportation alternatives. David, Bob and Kim are organizing neighbors and neighborhood groups to persuade City Council to impose a moratorium on parking exemptions for small lots to allow time for a working group to develop some adjustments to the zoning code to address the problem. City Councilman Albus Brooks (District 9), who represents the areas where these projects are being proposed was present at the meeting and said that he will support a 6-month “pause” on small lots with parking exemptions that are not already in the pipeline at Community Planning and Development. The committee voted to support the following motion, with 26 in favor, 2 opposed and 1 abstention:

Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation urges the Denver Community Planning and Development Department and the City Council to support a moratorium on applying Section 10.4.5.1(A) of the Denver Zoning Code to the issuance of zoning/building permits for development of apartments on small lots (6250 square feet or less) unless adequate parking is provided. Such developments can put extreme parking pressure on surrounding neighbors and businesses.