Speaker 2: So please take these flowers, these poinsettias during any time, I should say any time. Please do it at the conclusion of this meeting so that we can keep this meeting running effective and efficient. Councilman Cashman, will you put Council Bill 1210 on the floor?
Speaker 4: Yes, Mr. President. And I move the council Bill 1210 be placed upon final consideration and do pass.
Speaker 2: It has been moved and seconded. The public hearing of council votes often is opened. May we have a staff report? Andrew Webb.
Speaker 9: Good evening. Thank you, Mr. President. Members of the Council. I am Andrew Webb from Community Planning and Development here to present on this proposed rezoning of 39 of property at 3944 North High Street. This property is this request is in Council District nine. It's in the Cole neighborhood, just near the intersection of High Street and 40th Avenue. It's about 8000 square foot property with a single industrial building on the site. And the request here is to rezone from the I.B. Industrial Zone District with the UO to overlay Idaho two to IMX three, and that's industrial neighborhood context mixed use with a maximum height of three stories. Zoning nearby includes some recently zoned IMX three with the UO to overlay directly to the west of the subject site. I'd you oh two on properties all around the subject site with some you annex two and PWD and residential zoning further to the south of the site. Existing land uses include heavy industrial and transportation uses freight loading uses to the north of the site, smaller scale industrial and mix of single and multi-unit residential surrounding the subject site. This aerial gives a sense of the scale of buildings in the area. As you can see, it's primarily a 2 to 3 story industrial structures, some turn of the century residential structures, and then, of course, the the intermodal freight facility to the north. This photograph looking to the southeast shows some larger industrial uses to the east of the subject site, including a Coca-Cola bottling plant. These images show the subject site itself. As you can see, it is one industrial building and customer parking. This is the subject site directly across the street that was recently zoned to the I am x three zone district. The IP. The existing zoning IP is a general industrial district intended for very intense industrial uses. It does have some limitations on retail sales, and that's important for the for this application. In this particular case, the property owner is requesting this zone change. They are currently using the site for marijuana retail and the EIB's own requires that retail sales are only be permitted if the product sold is actually manufactured or processed somehow on site, which is not occurring with this particular business. The request is again to IMX three. This is a mixed use district in the industrial neighborhood context. It does promote pedestrian scale development. Buildings located up at the street active ground floor uses of note for this application does permit standalone retail uses. It also introduces other uses into the industrial context, including residential uses, and is typically intended as a transition between mixed use areas and then higher intensity AI or IP use areas. In terms of process, the first informational notice for this request went out in in late August. The planning board considered this request on October 18th and recommended approval. The committee considered it on November 7th. And here we are at the council hearing December 18th. There were multiple registered neighborhood organizations that consider this site to be within their their boundaries. And all have been notified of this request. We've not received any comment from RINO's about this request. As you know, to adopt a zone change, the council must find that the request is consistent with these five criteria from the Denver Zoning Code. With regard to the first consistency with adopted plans, there are several plans that impact the site, including the comprehensive plan and blueprint, but also the River North Plan, the Elyria and Swansea and Neighborhood Plan in the 38th and Blake Station area. Height Amendments. In terms of the comprehensive plan, this request does further multiple objectives from the comprehensive plan generally aimed at encouraging redevelopment of the former industrial sites into compact mixed use areas around especially around high quality transit stations where people can live, work and play, meet all their daily needs in one place. This is relatively close to the 38th and Blake Station area, as you'll see in subsequent plan slides here. Blueprint Denver calls this area out for a future concept. Land use of mixed use and does identified as an area of change is served by a on designated local and an alley, both of which connect to 40th Avenue, which is a mixed use arterial and appropriate to it to handle the type of development development that would occur in the I am x three zone district. The River North Plan recommended a concept land use of industrial mixed use at this site. Again that is that plan characterized that as less intense industrial residential and commercial uses in proximity to the at the time of this plan's adoption forthcoming transit station to be located nearby the Illyria and Swansea. A neighborhood plan recommended mixed use for this area with a focus on employment and noted that pedestrian access is is key in this area. And I'll point out that these are relatively small block sizes where the impact zone district is appropriate for calling for a high quality pedestrian environment. And then finally, the 30th and Blake Station area height amendments adopted last year established a set of base and incentive heights for this area. I most of you should be aware by now that Community Planning and Development and Council President Brooks are working on a larger set of zone map amendments and text amendments to establish a set of design and incentive overlays in this area that would implement the 30/30 and Blake stationary height amendments. This request came in a little bit early. You'll be hearing the larger rezoning case beginning early next year. But this case came in a little bit early on on the request of the owner to to address the mismatch between the land use and the between the zoning and the land use on the site. However, it's want to point out that this request is consistent with the recommendations of the 38th and Blake stationary height amendments and would establish the appropriate base height for this site. With regard to the other criteria, this request is consistent with the requirement that it result in the uniform application of district regulations that will result in the uniform application of regulations for the IMX three zone district. It will further the public health, safety and welfare by adopting or implementing adopted plans for creating walkable, mixed use, compact development, near high quality transit. The property owner proposed the changed community conditions as their justifying circumstance. Here to meet criteria number four and staff generally agrees that there has been a lot of new development and redevelopment activity in the River North area, especially since the opening of the University of Colorado Airline Station last year. With regard to consistency with the neighborhood context zone, district purpose and intent, this is does conform with the purpose and the intent of the industrial neighborhood context, which is designed to provide a buffer between high intensity industrial uses such as the freight uses to the north of the site and residential uses of decreasing intensity to the south of the site. So finally with that, CPD staff does recommend approval based on a finding that all these review criteria have been met. The representative of the property owner is here and I'm also happy to stand for any questions that you may have.
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you, Andrew. We have two speakers this evening. I'd like them to come to the front here. It looks like we have enough room. Quinn. Crow means queen crow means represent the.
Speaker 8: Owners of.
Speaker 2: The Lodge or KTA LLC. All right. You can have a seat if anybody is just here for questions or your questions. Okay, great. Members of council can ask questions. When we get to that portion. All right. 6 minutes, Chairman Sekou. We can put it down to three. You want your six?
Speaker 7: Okay. I reserve the right to abort the conversation.
Speaker 2: Okay. 6 minutes. Go ahead, Mr. Sekou.
Speaker 7: My name is Chairman Sekou from the organized the Black Star action movie of self-defense advocacy for poor, working, poor, homeless senior citizens. We support the zoning ordinance and change. And it's a wonderful thing to have this area developed and also given folks options as to how they can go about doing that process. And there's a caveat to this. Oh. Explosion and expansion of marijuana, especially in our neighborhoods that are currently being gentrified. And we find a strange thing happening. When this whole thing started with this marijuana thing. The black community and this youth were going to jail and unparalleled numbers for joint. 4000 years. And now that this legal. Folks who didn't pay the price through their life are now benefiting from the suffering of others who are still locked up in jail for the same thing that's legal now. Now during the time of slavery when it was abolished, you had to let everybody out of jail who had slave offenses . And yet, to this day, we have people languishing in the prison system still under this stuff. It's now legal. Now. And our neighborhood unemployment rate among you doing this whole period of time was 65%. And this was a means and ways for them to survive and take care of things they needed to take in order to live . And so, yes, there were some things that, you know, wasn't necessarily kosher, but it left them with the opportunity to actually practice what this country preaches. And that's creative capitalism. So we handled things on the down low and we did after hours. You know, you'll do what you do. And then we got to after hours, we do what we do. But then we were persecuted for that. And now you have a monopoly sitting down in this mess of folks who didn't pay the price but benefited from the blood and imprisonment of other folks. And that's not fair. That's not fair. That's like you're coming back and say, we're going to do slavery all over again and take the country back to when it was great. So we need to do something about this whole thing with this marijuana thing. Stop forgetting the things that matter, especially when people are languishing in prison systems now for this mess and then free them from the past so they can get on with their day today and give them hope. That did not forgotten. And so I implore the folks who are now currently managing and benefiting from the marijuana expansion and zoning changes and whatnot to begin to lobby. For a just resolution to this stuff, man. Because what is being sold? It's our culture. That's our culture. That's our way of life. We've made it available for everybody else to enjoy that too, at our expense. So there's a resentment behind this whole marijuana thing, this languishing and bubbling beneath the surface in the black community. And even though it's being gentrified, there's enough still there that matters. And so there's no excuses for this through as we continue doing this stuff. And I know the zoning change in the proper way. You would place to be looking at all of this. But now we have the possibility of putting this in subcommittee meeting to look at this thing, this whole marijuana thing, and see if we can make it something that's working properly and justice is being served. Yeah. Well, my man 41 say, that was pretty good. I'm done. I'm done.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Sekou. This concludes our speakers for the public hearing questions by members of council. Councilman Ortega.
Speaker 6: It's just a technical one, looking at the list of the rhinos that were notified. I noticed that the cross-community coalition, which represents the Swansea, a neighborhood, was not included, is a reason that they were left off the notification list. Since it's in their boundaries.
Speaker 9: Councilmember Ortega I'll have to I'll have to go look that up. We use a typical use a GIS tool to pull down all of the orange shows that that would that whose boundaries would include a particular site. And when we pulled them for this particular site, I don't think that one came up. So either the boundaries, you know, the boundary doesn't quite include it or ends at 40th or there may be an error in the data we have. So.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm assuming that they are registered still. Council Council President Brooks, you might know, but I mean, they're they're active in that area, so. Okay. Would you want.
Speaker 9: Repeating the name of this.
Speaker 6: Cross-Community coalition? And they represent the entire. So once you boundaries, I think you can. Is. O'LEARY Isn't that true?
Speaker 2: DUTCHER Yeah, but it stretches and it's all O-M-G. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 7: Look.
Speaker 2: Okay. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Seeing no other questions. Public hearing is close. Open for comments. Seen no comments. Madam Secretary, roll call.
Speaker 5: Black eye, Clark. All right. Espinosa. Flynn. Gilmore. Herndon. Cashman. Can carnage. Lopez. All right. New Ortega. Sussman All right. Mr. President.
Speaker 2: I please call the voting, announce the results.
Speaker 5: 13 eyes.
Speaker 2: 13 eyes. 1210 has been approved. Congratulations. All right. We have another public hearing this evening. Councilman Castro, will you please put 1324 on the floor?
A bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 3944 North High Street in Cole.
Approves an official map amendment to rezone land at 3944 North High Street from I-B UO-2 to I-MX-3 (industrial to industrial, mixed-use) in Council District 9.  The Committee approved filing this bill by consent on 11-7-17.