Committee Co-Chairs Ean Tafoya and Charles Nadler convened the meeting. The following items were discussed.

1. Associate City Planner Jason Morrison of the Denver Community Planning and Development Department (CPD) (Jason.Morrison@denvergov.org) and City Councilman Rafael Espinoza presented a proposed text amendment to the Zoning Code sponsored by Councilman Espinoza. If passed, it would require CPD to send written notifications by mail of any proposed rezonings to all owners of property within a 200-foot radius of the property proposed for rezoning, both before a Planning Board hearing and the City Council public hearing. This would improve notification to neighboring property owners. Currently, Registered Neighborhood Organizations receive such notice (thanks to the 1979 ordinance sponsored by INC), but some parts of the city do not have RNOs and some RNOs do not have active zoning committees or regular meetings to discuss rezonings. Several cities in Colorado and across the United States have such notification requirements. The Planning Board hearing on this proposed text amendment will be on April 18 and the City Council hearing will probably be on June 18.

Suggestions made by committee members were: 1) the notifications should spell-out the zone district categories, instead of using acronyms, which almost no one understands; 2) CPD should allow citizens to subscribe to a system, such as RSS (Real Simple Syndication) which could send notices of zoning, licensing and other items from the city directly to individual citizens.

A motion to support the proposed text amendment to require CPD to send written notifications by mail of any proposed rezonings to all owners of property within a 200-foot of the property proposed for rezoning was passed by a vote of 24 in favor, 1 opposed and 2 abstaining (one of whom was Joel Noble because he serves on the Planning Board). The amendment would implement better notification procedures which are part of INC’s Zoning and Planning Platform.

2. Margie Valdez updated the committee on a few items relating to marijuana ordinances and procedures. The first hearing on a designated marijuana consumption location took place on February 9, which approved a coffee/marijuana consumption establishment in an industrial area in the Lincoln Park area. Margie also told the committee that the Director of Excises and Licenses, Ashley Kilroy, has instructed hearing officers not to allow witnesses at such hearings to be asked if they consume marijuana, because of the fact that marijuana use is still prohibited by federal law.
3. Ean Tafoya updated the committee on several items, including:

• The rezoning and overlay district for the 38^th and Blake area, which allows greater density for such desirable uses as affordable housing and art studios, was approved by City Council.
• Public meetings in each Council District are ongoing regarding Blueprint Denver and a draft of the entire document will be available for public review by midyear.
• CPD has requested RNOs to recommend members for a new Group Living Advisory Committee.

4. Former Denver Planning Director Rocky Piro, currently the Executive Director of the Colorado Center for Sustainable Urbanism at the University of Colorado at Denver, spoke about work at the Center to “rethink comprehensive planning.” More and more urban areas are realizing that many types of planning, including for land use, transportation, water, health and economic development should be considered together in an integrated way and should not be siloed into separate plans and departments. All such planning also must have authentic community participation in order to be successful.