Group living proposal will be bad for communities
It was quite surprising to open the Sunday paper to see the editorial “Support the group-living proposal.” The proposed amendment would increase the number of unrelated individuals who can live in a single residence together and
Since this proposed Group Living Amendment was brought into active public discussion in early 2020, The Denver Post has published only a few guest commentaries with very limited news coverage. The final draft of the amendment was just issued on Jan. 7 and included significant changes such as adding congregate living in addition to residential care facilities into the amendment — but your readers don’t know about this and its potential impacts.
Where has this newspaper been with in-depth explanations, discussions and debates so that Denver residents understand this massive proposal which will result in the largest zoning change since 2010, impacting all Denver neighbors and neighborhoods?
Over the past nine months, I have been fortunate to be involved with hundreds of Denver neighbors across the city as part of Safe and Sound Denver. We are a grassroots collaboration of Denver neighbors that organically came together to oppose the more than 200-page Group Living Amendment as well as to provide oversight and fact-checking on information about the amendment released by the city.
Safe and Sound Denver is truly a non-partisan group (yes, rare these days) opposing the amendment as it will allow: an expansion of shelters/ community corrections; the removal of school buffer zones and corrections/shelters; for a change to “useby-right” with notifications only to nearby neighbors; provide an increased opportunity for the commercialization of neighborhoods as service providers and investors buy our city’s limited supply of single-family housing; an increase of density of up to a 150% in the number of unrelated adults to 5 plus any children in a home resulting in more trash, noise, parking and infrastructure issues.
Where is all the “equity” that this zoning portends to create when 20% of the city is still managed by an old zoning code known as Chapter 59, and the amendment will not have an impact in those areas that include Green Valley Ranch, Stapleton and Montbello. This significant detail wasn’t even mentioned in the editorial. Why was the amendment approved by the Denver Planning Board in July 2020 for its intent to spread equity without addressing or even mentioning Chapter 59?
How is it that the city will now, after having two zoning codes for over a decade, create a “bridge amendment” (committed to be completed early this year) to address this inequity? Is it because it probably will only cover the “household” definition? How will the city continue state equity with the continuation of two different zoning codes that were actually supposed to create equity? Where will resources come from to accomplish this, especially during these economic times? Maybe this entire amendment and its process was flawed from the very start.
The Post editorial board did not reach out to any folks involved in Safe and Sound Denver. How about any of the hundreds of Denver neighbors that wrote long and passionate letters to the city about the many challenges they live with every day due to a lack of enforcement on current zoning infractions? Do Denver neighbors’ tax dollars matter, but our voices do not?
Where is the research on the Community Corrections as I suspect this was the primary goal of the amendment? That was uncovered after the city refused to provide open record documents of its origins; thankfully Denver District Judge Michael Vallejos recognized this injustice and 97% of the documents were released by court order identifying this amendment was initiated by our city’s mayor and two City Council members voting.
As a Denver Post subscriber for many years, I am disappointed in not only the lack of coverage but also the endorsement of a flawed proposal while your news department failed to inform its readers of the potential, significant impacts to our communities. It is a sad time for Denver neighbors. We ask City Council to listen now and vote no on Feb. 8.
Paige L. Burkeholder is a 30 year, southeast Denver resident and has been involved with Safe and Sound Denver, a grassroots collaboration of hundreds of Denver neighbors across the city that have worked together to build awareness and opposition to Denver’s proposed Group Living Zoning Code Amendment.