Focus on the city’s future
Hancock differs from challengers on best vision for Denver
The debate over what Denver’s future should look like is coming into sharper focus as the city’s May election approaches, with Mayor Michael Hancock’s challengers proposing new restrictions on construction and development.
On Wednesday, Penfield Tate’s campaign called for the city to freeze new construction requests until the election has passed. In a statement to The Denver Post, he said there “should be a moratorium on approving any new permits immediately.”
Meanwhile, candidate Jamie Giellis has proposed strict new limits to the rezoning process that many developers use.
Giellis’ and Tate’s proposals arrive just as Hancock is seeking approval for Denveright, a lengthy set of plans for the city’s next 20 years.
Those long-term documents are due for approval by the Denver City Council in the coming months, just as Election Day approaches. Hancock’s best-funded challengers, including Lisa Calderón, all have demanded a delay in approval of the plans.
The administration has defended the plans, saying they’re the result of a years-long process that began in 2015 and involved hundreds of public meetings.
Tate’s permitting moratorium would freeze new construction, potentially including projects that are allowed by law but haven’t received administrative approvals.
“I think some of us are fearful that there will be a rush to the register, to get your project done, when you know it’s going to be held up to more scrutiny come July,” Tate explained in an interview.
He clarified that he’s not asking for a freeze on permits for fences and other small-scale projects, but it would include some projects that are already allowed “by right” under city law. “If it’s any sort of development or any sort of project that’s seeking some kind of waiver or variance, whether by right or not, that ought to be held up,” he said.
Giellis’ zoning change
“Rezoning in Denver has become too commonplace. It undermines the integrity of the planning and zoning process,” reads a draft issue paper for the Giellis campaign shared with The Denver Post.
Rezonings are a way of changing the development rules for a piece of land. They are approved by the Denver City Council, and they have cleared the way for large projects such as the CDOT campus redevelopment.
Giellis’ proposal would only allow rezoning to correct mistakes or to allow for “new land use types not previously considered.”
It also would end the oneby-one approval of rezoning proposals.
Instead, property owners would have to wait for an annual review period, with all rezoning proposals to be considered simultaneously.
Giellis stressed the proposal is “a start” that would need “public input and guidance.”
What Denveright does
Denveright represents the Hancock administration’s ideas for Denver’s growth through 2040.
“This is your plan, Denver, the result of three years and some 25,000 pieces of community input,” Hancock said Tuesday.
Draft plans were published last summer, but they’re now approaching crucial votes.
The plans would set highlevel goals that would filter down through neighborhood-level plans and other projects.
The plans also propose significant changes for development and land use. They suggest that the city encourage construction of “missing middle” housing — row homes, condos, duplexes, accessory dwellings and more — across more of the city, potentially including corner lots and main roads in single-family neighborhoods.
The plan also calls for most development to be focused in “regional” and “community” centers near transit, where the city could try to encourage affordable housing. Those density centers are based on the old “areas of change” and other plans, according to city planner David Gaspers, and are laid out in a “growth strategy” map.
Denveright also mentions an effort to improve design quality through new zoning rules or review boards, and a greater focus on how development affects lowincome neighborhoods.
The criticism
That’s just a sampling of the action points described in hundreds of pages of plan documents, and the challengers say it’s too much to process in the coming weeks.
It’s a criticism that first bubbled up in the InterNeighborhood Cooperation.
In a resolution, members of the citywide residents group described Denveright as “incomplete and vague” when it comes to paying for changes, and it said residents “need more time” to process the documents.
“Why would you push a plan forward now, knowing that you don’t have time to implement it between now and July?” Tate said in an interview, referring to the beginning of the next electoral term.
“It’s imperative that any plan for growth truly accounts for the social, health, and environmental impacts of that growth,” said candidate Calderón in a written statement requesting a delay.
And Giellis warned of disastrous results.
“On day one after it passes, there is a no-holdsbarred invitation to bring even more density and dean velopment to Denver without making infrastructure planning for transit, environment and affordability a priority,” she said in a recent news release.
The criticism has drawn a sharp response from former Planning Director Brad Buchanan in an email obtained by The Denver Post.
“For the thousands of hours of community engagement and thousands of individual contacts and opinions, this is a slap in the face to the very community you suggest you intend to represent,” he wrote in response to Giellis’ news release about “no holds barred” development.
“It’s just pandering at its worst. Please please consider the future of our City as you decide which rock to throw next.”
In an interview, Buchan- said the new model is an “evolution” that still emphasizes context.
Hancock, meanwhile, said that “now is the time” to approve Denveright.
“This started with this administration and this city council and it should finish with this … City Council and this administration,” he said. “We don’t pass the baton like that. We don’t pass the buck.”
What’s next?
To review the plans for yourself, visit denveright.com. Condensed “executive summaries” are available for each plan, as are the full documents and relevant maps.
To see the overall density expectation for your neighborhood, check the growth strategy map.
For more specifics, find your neighborhood on the “context” map. Then, look up that context in Section 5 of the Blueprint plan, where you will find maps with more details and other information.