Speaker 0: Please refrain from profane and obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and refrain from individual or personal attacks. Councilwoman, can you please put Council 84 on the floor?
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mr. President. I move Council 84 be placed upon final consideration and do pass.
Speaker 0: All right. It has been moved and seconded. Public hearing for Council 84 is open. May we have the staff report? Teresa Lucero, good to see you.
Speaker 8: Good evening. Teresa Lucero with community planning and development. This is a property located at 12150 East Andrews Drive. The request is to rezone from suburban single unit F to Suburban Multi-unit. Three stories. This property is located in District eight in the Montebello neighborhood, southeast corner of East Andrews and North Peoria Street, north of Interstate 70, south of the U.S. Army Training Center, northeast of the Montebello Public Library and Civic Center. It is about three acres, 149,000 square feet. There is an existing church on the property and a vacant elementary school. The applicant is requesting to redevelop the elementary school into a senior enlisted assisted living facility. So again, rezoning from single unit to multi-unit in the suburban context. And we'll talk about the suburban context in a little later. The existing zoning, again, single suburban single unit F is an 8500 square foot zone, not a current use. Again, a church and a vacant elementary school. The building is 1 to 2 stories and the neighborhood is 1 to 2 stories, essentially. This is the existing zoning. North is assumed. East is as you f and to the west is industrial mixed use three story. The existing land use is a civic land. Use a church. And you'll note that across Peoria's Street is another school that's a montessori school. To the north, another church, small church, and then industrial uses and office uses. But on the east side of Peoria, mostly single family and then some multi-family a little further south. So the existing building form, as I said, 1 to 2 stories, the church itself is pictured here in the top of the pictures, the church across the across Andrews Drive, top right to single family homes to the east and to the south are the two lower pictures left and right. And then the Montessori school is the upper left hand picture. So building scale 1 to 2 stories informational notice on this went out in November of 2016. Planning Board held a hearing on January 18th and unanimously recommended approval of this application. We were at Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on February 7th and we were here at the public hearing tonight. All of the public notice for all of these meetings was appropriately done and correctly done. We want to note that you do have four letters of support from various RINO's in the Montebello neighborhood. Those letters are attached to your staff report. So you know the criteria. Well, consistency with adopted plan, uniformity of district regulations, furthering the public health, safety and welfare. Justifying circumstances. Consistency with neighborhood context and zone. District purpose and intent. The plans that apply our plan 2000 Blueprint Denver and the Montebello Green Valley Ranch Neighborhood Plan, which is a 1991 plan. So current plan tells us to conserve raw materials by promoting efforts to adapt existing buildings to new uses to conserve land, by promoting development at sites where infrastructure is already in place, and to encourage development of housing that meets the increasing diverse needs of our present and future residents. Blueprint and Blueprint on the Blueprint Denver Map. This is Single-Family area of stability. That is an area where we want to see predominantly single family, very low density, and where the housing base is significantly larger than the employment base area of stability. This is where we're trying to maintain the character of the neighborhood while accommodating some new redevelopment, inappropriate locations. Future Street classification for East Andrews Drive as a residential collector for North Peoria is a residential arterial. The Green Valley, Montebello, Green Valley Ranch Neighborhood Plan. You'll notice on Slide 17, the darker areas are areas where there are specific recommendations for the site we're talking about. There is no specific recommendation, but they do talk about protecting the existing character, the area that's the over writing goal in the plan and encouraging single family residential infill on the east side of Peoria and not expanding the commercial zoning. So staff believes that this is consistent with current plan 2000 with the Green Valley Ranch Plan and that we are this is a small step in redevelopment and that we are furthering the uniformity of district regulations by using our standard districts and furthering the public health, safety and welfare, by allowing this civic use to reinvent part of its use to further serve the community and by implementing our plans. The changed circumstances, the closure of the churches, elementary school, development of a wide variety of nonresidential uses across Peoria Street. And just basically the overall demographic shift that everyone is facing with increased senior housing, very much a need of this community and the city. So staff believes that it's an appropriate changed condition to justify this rezoning. The suburban neighborhood context, as we said a little earlier, is characterized by single unit and multi-unit residential, commercial strips and centers, office parks, multi-unit buildings, typically separated from single unit buildings. The SMU three zone district is intended to promote and protect residential neighborhoods and allow multi-unit districts, but not to such an extent that it detracts from the overall image and character of the typically suburban residential area. Staff believes that this proposal is in conformance with these intents and with that staff recommends approval.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Ms.. Lucero We have five speakers for Council Bill 84. I'll call the first five individuals and you can have a seat up front next to Ms.. Lucero, Peter Haynes, John Martin, Richard E, Paul James Coleman and Ms.. Isobel Allen. The. This is. Peter Haynes, your first.
Speaker 9: Thank you. President Brooks. Miss Lucero. Councilman Hardin and all the other members of the Diversity Council for your unwavering leadership. I'm here tonight humbly request that you consider and support our map amendment for 12150 East Andrews Drive. Since the late 1960s, St Andrew Lutheran Church and School has graced the Mypillow community. Today we at Saint Andrew find ourselves responding to changes brought by time in transition. Proudly positioned at the corner of Peoria and East Andrews, St Andrew has long provided both spiritual and educational care to residents, young and old. After four decades of service, the school has succumbed to market and demographic transitions whilst the church continues to serve the community. Today, with your help, St Andrew can begin writing a new chapter and we have a new verse. On behalf of community and congregation, I'm requesting our current zoning single-family house to be changed to multi-unit. This change will allow Saint Andrew the framework to weave that verse of assisted living into its new chapter. Montebello has shown its support for assisted living. The Saint Andrew Congregation is ready to grow and the school is ready for repurpose in front of its you are our project highlights and that I'll just touch on they are revitalization, repurpose and redevelopment, activation, beautification and investment. All this through our desire to just position 30 beds of assisted living within the community. Only with your support can this request corner move forward at Saint Andrew. With your vote of yes for this rezoning, St Andrew would continue as a spiritual leader in Marbella, and our seniors will be housed with respect, dignity and care. Make no mistake, our plan is to provide assisted living residents to our seniors that they can't afford next to the church where they have been able to worship for years. We will also be able to cultivate their grandchildren, both spiritually and playfully. But to achieve this complex and lofty goal, we do need your help. So your vote of yes is a vote for Marbella? It's a vote for our seniors. And it's a vote for our spirits. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Haynes. John Martin.
Speaker 6: Thank you for letting me speak.
Speaker 7: I'm John Martin. I'm one of the elders at St Andrew's Lutheran Church.
Speaker 6: I live in Aurora, but we attend churches there in Denver. As Peter said, when we decided to close the.
Speaker 7: School, we started looking around for different ways to. Use the land and the buildings that we.
Speaker 6: Had to.
Speaker 9: Service the community.
Speaker 7: And we were. Quite surprised when we started doing.
Speaker 6: The public hearings. As soon as the.
Speaker 7: Hearings were were done, we started getting inquiries as to when we were going to start.
Speaker 6: The waiting list. We've had to, you know, put that off. But what I'm getting from the community members that are coming to us, there's waiting lists of up to five.
Speaker 7: Years for assisted living, and some of them.
Speaker 6: Are running ten and $12,000 per month. Our goal is to.
Speaker 7: Assisted living facility right there in.
Speaker 6: Montebello.
Speaker 7: Close to the communities that and the services.
Speaker 6: That residents have enjoyed for their whole lives, most of them. And keep it at a. Reasonable cost levels. And we working a lot with.
Speaker 7: Medicaid or Medicare, Medicaid.
Speaker 6: And try to keep it Medicaid reimbursable so that it's affordable. So I'm asking for your support in allowing us to move forward with this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Martin. Richard E Pool.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. The President books and thank all of you and counsel people who have who have allowed us to come before you tonight. I'd like to thank specifically Councilman Herndon and Councilperson Kip Gilmore, who have been supportive in this process from a distance in terms of providing us with the assistance of their AIDS. I my family has been a member of of St Andrew's Lutheran Church for 45 years. And we have seen it grow. And we have seen it. I believe you could say disappear in some respects because when the school closed three years ago, a lot of the members of the church had left there as well. And so this assisted living facility is an effort to reinvent the church as well as to repurpose the church. And we feel that there is a mission yet for the church in that community. And with the support of the council, we would be, I think, on the road to rebirth. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Mr. Paul. Representative James Coleman. But Councilman Kennedy, did you ever.
Speaker 3: He just asked me to let folks know he was here to support the amendment, but had another engagement and regrets that he had to leave.
Speaker 0: All right. Thank you. All right. Miss Isabel Allen.
Speaker 12: Good evening, councilman and council women. We are happy to be here with you this evening. I don't want to be redundant, but I may have to because some of the things that you've already heard me say them again, the far northeast in the last four or five years. Has just grown and grown and grown and. The people that are there that really need help. Is the seniors. They need housing and they need services. We are very proud of our. Council person, Mrs. Gilmore, who kind of recognized that and she started dialog in the community on what can we do to better serve our seniors. And after her getting me initiated, the dialog with churches and the community organizations. The outgrowth of that was St Lutheran Church who came to the rescue and said, You know, our school is closing. And we thought of the idea of making this site an assisted living site for seniors. What a blessing. We were just glad to do whatever we can as president of the Far Northeast Neighbors Association. We joined in with them to help them in whatever way we could to make this become a reality. I want you to know that this is not just going to be a site. It comes with services. And services that the people that will be living there will get like daily routine care. Welfare services. Educational services. Accessibility to technology. And, you know, the church remains. It will be there. And so also their religious needs will be taken care of. And then I heard Mr. Hines here say it's who's representing the developer. Um. Oh, we're going to have a small ice cream shop in there. Hmm. And I said to him, Count me in. I'll be there. So there is a dire need for this facility, and we need you to join in with our council people who have initiated this task, Ms.. Allan, to support this effort.
Speaker 0: Your time is yours. I don't want I don't want to interrupt you because you are so good. But I have to be judicious to all the folks who are speaking for 3 minutes. But thank you for your words. All right. This concludes our speakers questions by members of council.
Speaker 5: Councilman Espinosa had a question for Teresa as a couple, and I apologize. I want people in the audience who are sort of new to rezonings. My questions are going to be sort of. Technical and they have almost nothing. I mean, they they have everything to do with this rezoning, but nothing to do with whether this is an acceptable rezoning or not, which I. Based on all the evidence I've I've been presented both here in committee totally fine with. But two things did come to mind as that didn't come up to me in committee and I just wanted to sort of bounce and laugh you. In because religious use, you know, is essentially allowed anywhere. You know, it could be any zone district. Is that but does that use capture? Does it capture multifamily housing? No. So even if it was a religious organization that was running it, they wouldn't just be allowed to do that in his own district. Okay. And then would this site have qualified for campus zoning?
Speaker 8: Can I just elaborate a little bit? Multi-unit use is its own separate use. Religious assembly is of use. Okay. But multi-unit residential is a separate use.
Speaker 5: So even so, it.
Speaker 8: Would be in a single unit zoned district that property currently has. You can't do multi-unit.
Speaker 5: Great. So would it. Was this parcel big enough? I mean, the zone lot big enough to qualify for a campus zoned district.
Speaker 8: I don't think that we we particularly have a. Acreage. The thought was because the used the first use, the church wants to stay. We really just wanted to enable the assisted living portion to happen legally. And so that's why we came to the multi-unit.
Speaker 5: The only reason I ask this is more in respect to what areas that I'm familiar with, where these church properties or sort of significant landmarks in the neighborhoods and areas and, you know, preserve, preserving sort of that role, place that that sort of cultural role, social role that the church had, even if it's not functionally but visually sort of have value. And I don't know that that's the case here, but I think it is. So that to me is one of those latitudes.
Speaker 8: That it's kind of small. So that's why our sort of thought process went to just, uh, accommodating the, the new proposed use.
Speaker 5: Yeah. In which I think the IMU obviously does that very well, captures the use, allows the church to pursue the assembly to persist and all that. And that's why I want to assure everybody that there's no issue here. But with respect to how do we capture sort of those sort of those other those other sort of things?
Speaker 8: Well, I think that I've got another zoning that is actually going to a campus zone district. In that case, it's a full block. It's. Trying to think of how many buildings one, two, three, four, four or five structures on that block. Um, so that, that to us is a campus. Yeah. When it's one structure with an attached school, I guess that's why we didn't, our mind didn't go to campus because it wasn't multiple buildings that all had to relate to each other and all needed, you know, um. One. Some flexibility on location. There is not going to be new construction.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 8: In terms of expanding the building. Um, so that's why we came to this own district that we came to.
Speaker 5: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 0: You're welcome. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. All right. This concludes our speakers are questions by members of council public hearing for council bill 84 is now closed. Comes by members of council councilman herndon.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. President.
Speaker 5: When they showed the.
Speaker 6: Map, I was going to.
Speaker 5: Pull this up, but just give everyone a geography lesson as this property is on the southeast side of Peoria and Andrews. Had it been on the. Which is in Council District 811 on the northeast side, you would have been in Council District 11. So the border Andrews is the border between District eight and District 11. And Councilman Gilmore has been a great partner in making sure that we can support Mom Bella as we both represented on council. I was I was looking at my calendar to see the first time that I came to this property to have a conversation about this and some other things, this in November of 2015. I was surprised, like, oh my goodness, it has been this long because that's when we first started having conversations about it and they were sharing their ideas with me. I thought, What a great idea for this space. State Representative Coleman, as Councilman Kennedy said, had to leave, but he posted this on Facebook. And since it's on Facebook, I feel I have no problem reading this.
Speaker 6: And it said and I'll just read parts of it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for recognizing my support for the development at St Andrews near Peoria and Andrews Drive in fellow to create housing options for seniors.
Speaker 6: This is another avenue for residents to consider as they age.
Speaker 5: Excuse me and are looking to downside. And lastly, this would allow our seniors to live in our community, truly providing them a choice. It's important not only to welcome new residents to our communities.
Speaker 6: But also do our best to make to take care of those who.
Speaker 5: Raised us. That was from State Representative James Coleman, who I thought very eloquently put that, you know, when we talk about those that are vulnerable to the fluctuations in our housing price process, the ones that should come first and foremost are our seniors and mom. Bell Specifically, I think about my Bella Manor, which is a senior housing that we have 79 units with, had a waiting unit of almost 100. And then we did a groundbreaking for a second man, Bell Manor 85 units and those quickly filled up as well. And so this is a need that we still need more options available. And particularly in communities like Marbella, where there is a I think a high senior population because people want to stay and the communities that they grew up lived in raised their children and continue to love. And so I think this is a great opportunity.
Speaker 6: To do so.
Speaker 5: I'm very supportive of this and would encourage my colleagues to support this as well. Thank you, Mr. President.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman Herndon, to the other side of my fellow Councilwoman Gilmore.
Speaker 8: Thank you, President Brooks. I am fully in support of this rezoning. And I have to say, you know, Mr. Hines, some of your comments about, you know, rebirth.
Speaker 3: And, you know, it's the first day of spring.
Speaker 8: And this corner in the Montebello community has always been a very active church and had the honor this summer to.
Speaker 3: Attend.
Speaker 8: A community barbecue and first found.
Speaker 3: Out about what was going on. And the longevity of your membership.
Speaker 8: At this particular church is amazing. And to be able to.
Speaker 3: Reactivate and reuse.
Speaker 8: And really repurpose this to respect our elders and the community.
Speaker 3: And make sure that folks can age.
Speaker 8: Within the community and, you know, look across the street and see all the youngsters that are going to school.
Speaker 3: On the other side of Peoria, but really maintain.
Speaker 8: The community, the residential feel.
Speaker 3: Of our neighborhood. And I look forward to seeing this development, having it activated and.
Speaker 8: And going over and visiting with some of our amazing elders who live in our community. But I definitely have to give, you know, definitely respect and to Miss Isabella Allen and Mr. Poole.
Speaker 3: Because they have definitely carried a large part.
Speaker 8: Of the community outreach, the community engagement.
Speaker 3: Scheduling, the meetings, the list of the four registered neighborhood organizations that, you know, gave letters of support.
Speaker 8: Towards this project. Really, I think the credit.
Speaker 3: Needs to go to Ms.. Allen and Mr. Poole for really carrying this project forward and look forward to seeing the work on this site.
Speaker 8: So thank you, Mr. President.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore. Councilwoman Black.
Speaker 3: A very quick comment. I just want to say, this is the biggest feelgood moment after the crisis on a park overlay district. I will definitely be supporting this.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilwoman Black and I will be supporting this as well. I started my career in Denver in the MONDELLO neighborhood, 15475 Andrews Drive, and then so excited to see this community preserve and think about the legacy of the community and its elders. So thank you so much. And with that, it's been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary.
Speaker 2: Brokaw Herndon, High Cashman. I can eat. LOPEZ All right. New assessment, black eye. CLARK Hi. Espinosa. Hi. Gilmore, I. Mr. President.
Speaker 0: I. Police close voting announce results. Lebanese 11 eyes spell 84 has passed. Congratulations. All right, we have. You can clap. You can clap. Okay, we have one more public hearing. Councilwoman, can we please put council to 77 on the floor?
A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 12150 East Andrews Drive.
Rezones property located at 12150 East Andrews Drive from S-SU-F to S-MU-3, suburban single-unit to suburban mixed-use, in Council District 8. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 2-7-17.