Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Community Planning and Housing Committee with Denver City Council.

Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

This is the community planning and housing committee of Denver City Council.

It is August 19th.

We will start with council member introductions.

I'm Councilmember at large, Sarah Parody, and we'll go to my left, sir.

Good afternoon.

Darren Watson, fine district nine.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

And I think we have at least one member online.

Yep.

Hey guys, the Mandasaur District 5.

We have an early start today because it is a jam-packed agenda.

Thank you all for being here a half hour ahead of time.

And we will start with community planning and development.

I think Liz is already at the front of the table.

On a rezoning at 800 15th Street, item number 251186.

Thank you, Council Members.

I'm Liz Weigel with Community Planning and Development, and I'll be presenting this rezoning application.

It's at 815th Street, and it's a request to go from the downtown core with the U01, which is our adult use overlay, to the Denver Theater District, and retaining that overlay.

Okay, so this property may be familiar to you.

I think you heard a case across the street last night at City Council.

So this is at the corner of Stout Street and 15th.

It's about a 0.29 acre property.

It's currently occupied by the A Loft Hotel, Denver Downtown Hotel.

And as I said, this is a request to go from our downtown core district to the downtown theater district to allow for the construction of electronic message center signage, which we can also call digital signage, and help serve as a gateway to the Denver Theater District.

I went the wrong way there.

Okay.

Okay, I'll walk through the location and context.

This is located in Council District 10, Councilman Hines' district within our central business district.

And as you can see here, it's located right at that edge of our existing what says DTD is our theater district zoning, and it's currently in the downtown core.

I'm just calling it downtown core, downtown center.

It does not allow for off-site advertising, and it's otherwise identical to the theater district zoning.

And as I mentioned, the U01 is our adult use overlay, and the applicant is not proposing to change that.

Here you can see the existing context.

So you see the existing hotel there in the bottom right corner.

And you see the uh adjacent uh properties around it.

And it is right there at that corner of 15th and stout, uh, leading as you go down stout away from 16th Street and towards 14th.

You do um you're right across from the convention center there and the performing arts center uh to the north.

Um so the uh existing and the proposed districts, as I said, are essentially the same.

They have the same um allowances in terms of new buildings that would be built and building form standards.

Uh the difference with the theater district is that special signs are allowed in that district, um including animated or flashing and off-site advertising.

Um, the special signs uh are subject to a theater district district sign plan, which would be something that would follow the rezoning if approved, and that theater district sign plan goes to the planning board and they have criteria that would they would consider any changes to that theater district to allow uh this site to be part of that district sign plan.

Walk through our process.

Uh this application was accepted and noticed uh back in June, uh, and it went to Planning Board on August 6th.

Uh it is that committee today, um, and tentatively it would be heard by city council for a public hearing in October.

Um, planning board, when they uh heard this case, they did recommend approval.

Their vote was a seven to two vote.

Uh they did have a discussion about uh the allowances for off-site advertising and general discussion about uh signs and how they contribute to uh high quality urban design and community benefits.

Uh they expressed hope for the downtown the forthcoming downtown area plan amendment that it will provide more guidance on potentially uh a more comprehensive update to the theater district and lessen the need for individual rezonings going forward.

Uh two-date staff has not received public comments on the application, but we have received one letter of support um from the upper downtown neighborhood association.

I will now walk through the review criteria.

As you're aware, we have three review criteria consistency with adopted plans, furthering the public interest and consistency with neighborhood context zone district purpose and intent.

Um in this area, we have three adopted plans, our citywide plans, comp plan 2040 and Blueprint Denver.

Um, and we also have the downtown area plan.

Um, as many of you know, we are currently um undergoing an update to our downtown area plan um that we currently have a draft out for public review.

Um given the timing, this application is reviewed against the currently adopted plan, which was from 2007.

Um so staff does find uh consistency with comp plan 2040 that's outlined in the staff report.

I will highlight a couple of the recommendations.

Uh, one is contributing to high quality urban design.