It's time for a special session of City Council's Planning Board Working Group.

Join us for City Council's Planning Board Working Group.

Starting now.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry, here we go.

Okay, we're passing the soda.

Thank you all for joining us for the special planning board and city council session.

I always look forward to these meetings.

We are having people trickle in a little bit.

And I will go around the room and get started.

And um when you introduce yourself, will you just say if you're, I know that city council members, but um I think we have a new planning board members.

So just for my colleagues, if you want to pay special attention to our new planning board member, that would be important.

So I'm Amanda Sanaval.

I represent Northwest Denver and have the honor of being council president right now, and look forward to these sessions.

So I'll go around the room and start to my left.

Good afternoon, Flora Alvidres, Lucky District 7.

Good afternoon.

Paul Cash from South Denver District 6.

And Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

Melissa Makia, Planning Board Member.

Alicia Conhammet, Denver Planning Board.

Andrew Webb, Denver Community Planning and Development.

Rob Haig, Community Planning and Development.

Deirdre Oz, planning board member.

Caitlin Quander, planning board member, and current chair.

Julie Meenan Eck.

New planning board member.

Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect 10.

Which welcome to Perfect 10.

Hi, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Did you say Julie?

Is that Julie?

Yes.

Alright.

So we'll pass it over to CPD.

The floor is yours.

Great.

Thank you so much for the time again today.

This is the uh fourth uh joint uh session that we've had with you all.

Um and so we just kind of like to build on what we've been talking about and give you an update about where the unlocking housing choices project um is today.

Um so we have a quick uh agenda to go through.

Uh we'd like to first kind of review the project and the project goals and then recap kind of where we are and and what the strategies look like uh that we're currently uh refining.

Um then we will talk uh about some uh more specific details on the affordability bonus um and then uh the survey and engagement analysis that when we last met in March, we were just about to go into.

Um, and then finally um uh we'll talk a little bit about expected outcomes and a recent report that we had uh prepared by our uh our consultant team.

Um so a little bit of ground setting here, and as we reach a point in the project where we're refining our key strategies, it's important to remind ourselves where we started.

So these were our original project goals.

So they are to allow more missing middle housing, update and building forms to promote compatibility, incentivize the retention of existing homes, explore incentives for requirements for on-site affordability, and implement blueprint in our NPI plans that call for this missing middle housing initiative as a citywide project.

So from those original goals, we've been working closely with our advisory committee to develop the strategies we're working on, and we'll talk about that we're refining today.

Uh last summer we established the project's background, got our arms around what we're really trying to do uh within that committee.

Um, and then in the fall of 25, we addressed some of the scheduling challenges and really got started on the work of developing the project strategy.

Had lots of workshops or had a few workshops and and uh um uh really came out of that with these three three key strategies that we have in refinement now.

Um, then through the winter of uh and spring of 2026, we made progress testing those strategies and really understanding the feasibility and and taking a look at what uptake we might expect.

Um, and then now uh here on the right, this kind of shows generally the process of how we have been working with our advisory committee, partner agencies, stakeholders, and all of you, um, through this development of our strategies.

Um, and also throughout this whole project, our our primary guidance has continued to come from Denver's adopted plans.

So we place significant weight on these plans because these plans just are much more, much better supported than we are to complete the community engagement.

It's supported by longer uh community engagement processes, they're better resources, they have community navigators, and so we really rely on on that deep work that that happened.

And our work that we're doing now or that we just completed out in the community, is still crucially important, but is supplementary to this.

So as a reminder, these are our three key strategies that we've that we have developed through that process and that we're working to refine in the current stage.

So these are to improve compatibility of residential development, allow more homes when an existing home is retained, and allow more homes when affordability is provided.

When we're considering changes to our building standards, these are to make house scale development fit better within the existing neighborhoods that make up Denver's low scale house scale residential neighborhoods.

This could include revising how we regulate third floors or half stories, could include second story terraces and balconies, different standards there, exceptions for porches, and also changing regulations around wall height or length to address things that we see in our plans, which is uh the community vision for for homes that look more like uh again, what exists in existing communities.

Um these changes would would apply to new single unit development as well as new missing middle housing development that's allowed by unlocking housing choices.

So, in addition to that, we would also uh we're also working on a proposal to establish a maximum floor area limitation on residential development.

The floor area maximum would increase for each additional housing unit to financially incentivize missing middle housing development instead of these very large single unit homes that we see that are pervasive today.

This would still maintain a size that is appropriate to the neighborhood.

Current building forms allow for houses that are often two to three times larger than the size of homes that uh that were traditionally built in those existing neighborhoods.

So these strategies will moderate the price of new homes, slow speculative redevelopment, and really promote the development of the the strategies that we are introducing through unlocking housing choices.

However, even though we're placing this limitation, this limitation on single unit homes still significantly larger than average homes crossed.

Around 2,000 square feet for a detached single building home.

So 3,500 square feet, even though it is a limitation, it is still significantly larger than the majority of homes in the city and allows for uh individuals, homeowners to still add value to their properties if they plan on keeping it as a single unit.

So this infill bonus is the second key strategy and it would allow for additional dwelling units when one or when the existing home is retained.

So through this strategy, unlocking housing choices seeks to discourage debullition, expand options available for builders and homeowners to incentivize the creation of new housing units while keeping the existing homes in place.

The third key strategy is the affordability bonus.

So this would allow for a completely new structure to replace an existing home, but requires at least one of the units to be either deed restricted as affordable or become part of a community land trust.

And we'll we'll take a closer look at this strategy in the next few slides.

But we wanted to provide this quick overview of kind of where we were and what we talked about last March before we get into new material.

So over the last few, last month or so, uh we have really been working on updating and kind of refining this affordability strategy and the details going into this.

Um so this is like this is one of the main things we'd like to cover with you today.

So this strategy fits in below the existing mandatory affordable housing requirements for 10 units or more that was uh that exist currently and were developed under the expanding housing uh expanding housing affordability project or EHA.

So, somewhat different than these existing requirements is that what we are proposing is a bonus.

So that we allow these additional housing types in exchange for the affordable units that are being created.

Um so this provides these opportunities beyond the current zoning, these affordable units can be for rent or for sale, and host will be the primary administrator of these requirements.

So the current proposal would require at least one of the units in a development to be affordable to a median household, earning 70% of the area median income for the city if it is for rent, or 100% of the area median income if it's for sale.

As an example, and what that really looks like on paper for a works out to about 1890 per month for a one-bedroom house or 2621 per month for a three-bedroom house.

At a for sale rate, this uh looks like $392,450 for a one-bedroom home, or uh $504,700 for a three-bedroom household.

So beyond this, and just to summarize a few more details, the affordability bonus applies to single unit and two-unit zoned properties.

This incentivizes affordable housing development up to nine units again below the mandatory affordable housing requirements where those requirements would would take precedent.

Unlocking housing choices is not proposing an inclusionary zoning requirement for row house zone districts, since they are already allowed to uh uh uh construct additional units.

Uh again, this is the bonus that is allowed for single unit and two-unit zone districts.

Um the unlocking or sorry, the the area median income is based on the Denver metropolitan area as calculated by HUD, and AMI levels for income restricted rental or for sale units are set and applied citywide and do not vary by neighborhood.

So during this last phase of strategy development, we also tested the feasibility of our proposed changes and strategies and found that our updated standards reduce the maximum profitability driven by the replacement of these moderately sized homes with very large new homes and duplexes.

And the effect of this could be to slow speculative development and steer builders towards our other strategies, our infill bonus particularly.

And the affordability bonus is likely only to be used by nonprofit or mission-driven affordable housing developers, or by other builders who can combine multiple funding sources to close the gap between development costs and the revenue generated by these income restricted units.

So generally, when we looked at this in multiple different areas of the city, kind of hypothetically with different land costs, different potential rents, or for sale prices, the for the math really to work out and have uh you know the the uh really for the math to work out there there need to be multiple funding sources.

So uh market rate developer without any subsidy, without any other gap financing would have a very difficult time purchasing a property, scraping a home, rebuilding it in one of these ways, and providing one of the units at an affordable rate.

Um for that reason uh the infill bonus then becomes kind of the most uh most attractive option for a market rate developer under these strategies who would look to uh retain that existing house as required by the strategy and and construct additional housing on that property.

Um now we'd like to quickly review the survey results and engagement analysis.

So when we met last March, we were just preparing for a round of community engagement that ended in early April.

Since that meeting, we've incorporated what we've learned from the community along with additional stakeholder input, our feasibility study, and also work with our advisory committee to continue refining our strategy details.

So, once again, uh when considering community input in project strategies, at this point in the project, it provides extremely helpful guidance for many of the important details, but we do still continue to place significant weight on the city's adopted plans because they are supported by much longer, better resource community engagement processes.

The engagement we conducted this spring included five uh public meetings hosted by CPD.

Andrew and I attended 25 or more than 25 RO meetings where we presented briefings and uh got a lot of great input and answered a lot of questions about unlocking housing choices.

And we also distributed an online survey and had over 800 responses to that.

So the responses from the survey generally showed support for the key project strategies while also highlighting several areas of concern.

So the survey is a really important tool for checking our work.

It helps us confirm that we are headed in the right direction and that we're considering the full range of community concerns and that we're really not missing the market at any point.

This also helps us identify issues that may need additional attention and help uh help uh illuminate blind spots as we refine our proposal.

So, in addition to the survey, uh we also had a lot of great responses to our engagement, either through our comment form, um, uh kind of the subjective answers in the survey comment area, or during our community meetings.

Um, and this really helped us also identify some some key areas of concern and things that we need to highlight and address.

So, overall, the spring community engagement again helps us refine these details while the overall policy direction uh is really still still set.

We do have a much more detailed report on all of this engagement that we've conducted, and that's available on our website for anyone that's interested, or reach out to Andrew now.

We can be happy to send that to you as well.

Um, so now last piece, uh, and then we can get into some discussion.

We'd like to provide a quick overview of our expected outcomes.

Um this can help ground the conversation in what the proposed changes are likely to produce over time, and could will include kind of general ideas about the pace, location, and type of redevelopment that we may see after unlocking housing choices is adopted, if it is adopted.

Uh so ultimately, this is a really difficult question to answer.

Uh, relies on many different uh considerations, different markets, uh variables, uh, continued demand for living in the city, construction cost, interest rates, the available of property at prices that actually work and are favorable for development and redevelopment.

And so through all of these, our our consultants helping us with this project group policy research, developed a report that's summarized uh here in this slide just very briefly.

Uh the report's several pages long, so I'd recommend anyone who uh is interested in more detail to take a look at that report.

Um, you know, at broad strokes, the the report uh is based on development trends that have happened in Denver, and then that kind of combined with what we've seen in peer cities.

They looked at neighborhoods where development is happening more rapidly, uh, where the markets are really strong, and then those where there are uh less strong markets, uh, to kind of understand where uh where we might see the potential outcome.

So over the past uh 15 years from 2010 to 2024, we saw 237 uh single unit dwellings that are redeveloped each year.

Uh the majority, 155, are replaced with larger single-unit homes, and 82 of those uh were replaced uh annually with uh missing middle housing units.

So uh part of this is because in many areas the only thing that you can replace your single unit house with is a larger single unit home, and that that contributes largely, but uh this rolls into our expectation at the low end, you know, we we could expect to see 83 single unit lots citywide convert into 249 missing middle uh missing middle housing units.

Um, and at the high end, we could see as many as 675 single unit uh uh lots convert into um 2025 missing middle homes.

Um, it's important to remember while thinking of these that that uh you know uh a significant portion of this redevelopment would retain that existing house as part of the requirement, um uh and would not include a demolition.

So another really important takeaway from this study uh was that redevelopment is focused in certain areas of the city and in certain neighborhoods.

Um in unlocking housing choices and what we've seen in other cities is this is not expected to dramatically change.

So uh typically where markets are strong, um uh is driven by uh location to um amenities.

Um uh this map here shows the uh the the recent redevelopment, so what we have seen since 2010 um in the areas with more dense redevelopment would be the areas that we expect to continue to see redevelopment.

Um, as this is not uh expected to dramatically shift.

The zoning simply changes in most cases what we see in other cities, what is built, not where it is built.

So that concludes our our presentation for today.

And as we're getting into the QA session and uh and and hearing your comments as we normally do, we would like to pose this question to you.

And it's it would you support this citywide proposal as it comes to planning board and as it comes to city council for a vote later this year?

And if not, what changes would you need to see to be able to support this phase?

Again, we're at the point where we have our kind of key strategies and we're refining them and working in the details.

Um, but generally, kind of here on the right, right?

We have this more compatible residential design, and then the two options to that allow for additional missing middle housing options.

So um interested really to hear what you all have to say.

Um, but happy to answer any questions as well.

So thank you.

Thank you.

So I'd just like to welcome Councilmember Watson, Councilman Um, Gonzalez Coquetes.

Sorry, I had Senator in down because I go by three.

I agree.

I'd like to introduce uh board member Rachel and Mary.

Okay, did I miss anyone?

Okay, got it.

Thank you.

Um, and for those who are wondering, you can find this presentation on Legistar.

Um, it's like under a special thing, I can't remember what it is.

Yeah, like a working group.

It's a working group.

I'm trying to find it right now.

Uh I can't find any workshops and presentations.

Yeah, thank you.

So first up, I have council.

Awesome.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, it sounds like there's been a lot of work and discussion put into this.

Uh, appreciate that.

One of the things that hits me right away is just that what I've been hearing is we want simpler, straightforward, and easy to understand, and this is not giving me simple, straightforward, easy to understand for the general public.

I am worried about two particular things.

Um one is the infill bonus and the affordable housing requirements are not requirements but bonuses, and that is because number one, I think we're working on our housing needs assessment, which will tell us where the needs are, which I think is important.

Number two, is I I worry because we've seen it happen on other affordable housing projects, that people won't qu people that want to live in these units won't qualify.

They either make too little or too much.

Uh, I worry about the um gross versus net income because just because someone makes a hundred K doesn't mean their health insurance doesn't take a bunch of that, and so I have concerns about those units.

I'm seeing in my district for rent units, and I've seen uh in instances of forced sale affordable units really struggle to get off the market, and so um I think that the strategy around the size makes sense, and that will automatically make these units cheaper, especially if you're gonna be putting three units on a lot.

Uh, those are not gonna be that highly desirable multi-most likely multi-million dollar.

And then I also I know there had been talk about different uh approaches in different areas, looking at the price per acre, Mary, I think was the one that brought that up last time or maybe two times ago, and how we approach that in nest areas like some of the west side of my district versus council presidents uh district, which is like completely almost redeveloped looking at the color map.

So I'm curious about those things, but firstly, around the housing needs assessment and how that will play into this strategy.

Yeah, great question.

Um, you know, don't have a complete answer for you.

We we are still, you know, working regularly with hosts, we have regular coordination meetings, and as they get further along in that um uh that process will be kind of inputting that data um and making sure that any changes that need to happen that come out of that um are absolutely going to do so.

And we also have the benefit of having the same consultant on uh our project route policy research, um, so they also have that inside window and are able to kind of help directly integrate kind of what they're learning as they're starting that needs assessment.

So um, yeah, that's a good observation, and we'll definitely be coordinating.

Okay, those are my concerns.

I think overall I I would like to see it be simpler, more straightforward.

I do have concerns about the affordability requirement and the reality of people looking for housing being able to qualify for these very strict uh you know rules around qualifying, and then my last concern is uh that this is really incentivizing uh nonprofits and affordable housing developers, great, but what about homeowners that want to add a couple units or multi-generational housing?

I feel like that those people could be left out.

Right, and um if I can respond, okay.

So the that infill bonus is absolutely what's targeted for homeowners, too.

Um, since that house in those cases typically um it's much more cost-effective to keep that home in place and someone can live there.

Maybe there's some some work that's done on that house, and then those additional units can be built.

Um, they have to be income restricted.

No, they do not so the bonus does not have to be income restricted.

So it correct, so it's either or.

So you are either uh creating an affordable unit, one or more on the property, or you are retaining the house and you can build additional units that are market rate.

Okay, but still a homeowner may want to sell one of those units.

And that's still possible too.

So in this uh the same way that a duplex today or a row house today is divided by parcel and still remains on one zone lot.

Um these uh this strategy would allow for that separation by deed or through the assessor's office.

So what's the difference of what you mentioned in the beginning?

There's a difference between a homeowner and or how it's incentivizing homeowners.

Um it's just it's just possible they don't have to have uh the um, you said if they retain it.

So if they're selling it, they're not retaining it.

Oh, just keeping it on the property, just not demolishing it.

The additional unit, it's the so they all they need to do is not demolish that existing house, and they could build uh, you know, uh two additional units at the rear, you know, if the lot of course works.

Preserving the original single family home and the other umplex, whatever you have to that would be allowed to go with market race.

That am I heard correctly?

All right.

Okay, that makes sense.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

Except we have council member cashman followed by council member Hank.

Thank you, Madam President.

And if anyone wants to get the keys in.

Um, I'm missing a couple of basics here.

Um, as things should today.

Are we talking about a blanket approach citywide?

That all properties can build three units, four units.

Where are we at?

Um we currently have not talked about a um an overall limit on the number of units.

So, what we found in our testing is that uh generally the number of units is limited by the size limitation.

So I'll flip back to the slide that shows the potential um floor area limitation, um and and this is is kind of what keeps things in check and on a 65 square hundred or four sixty-five hundred square foot property, it generally is is only feasible to build three to four units.

So does that override currently our zoning is we talk about urban and suburban and edge and so on.

That goes away in effect in this particular area, and we're just looking at available uh lot size.

Uh potentially, um, but there are those the within the different contexts are areas that we are looking at potentially having different standards, so different setback standards and and things like that uh are still likely to be different in the same way.

You know, the suburban house form is different than the urban house form.

This new form that we build may have some differences there.

Um so it's you know that it's the same strategy that might be tweaked um kind of between the different contexts.

They would still be the um I so I I see what you're saying.

So without um let's see, so without utilizing these bonuses, a single unit zone district, you could still only you build a single unit.

But if you preserve that house, then you qualify for these additional types.

Um say in this zone district, one house per lot.

We yes, we would be changing the um and allowing multiple units on a single unit zone lot.

Okay, thank you.

That clarifies, appreciate that.

Thank you, Madam Perris.

Thank you.

Next up we have Councilmember Heinz, followed by Protect Memoral Campbell.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, and thank you for the uh for the presentation.

Uh thanks to planning board for being here as well.

It's it's fun to have these uh combined meetings.

So I'm I'm gonna speak on behalf of all of Denver.

I represent District 10, which is a center city district, which um uh allows me to have sponsored multiple uh density, pro density, pro-housing um options, eliminating parking minimums.

Uh, just one example.

Um, I'm for the Minneapolis model, frankly, um, where we just get rid of single family zoning and or allow multiple units everywhere throughout the city.

Um that's something that I feel comfortable that I can say on behalf of uh at least the majority of the people that represent.

So um with this, I I think again I'm representing Denver, so I'm hearing other perspectives from other.

I'm sorry, I'm representing District 10, so I'm hearing perspectives from other people in Denver, but um your question of uh do I think uh this makes sense?

I think it does.

Um uh do I think that it uh will help move the needle?

I think it will.

Um I like that these are um benefits that come uh as part of a conversation as opposed to you just get it.

Um so you know, entitlements, right?

That's um uh we've had um people in Golden Triangle entitled to build quite a bit of density, and uh and so I like that what we're doing is we're incentivizing uh the values that we care about here in the city of Denver.

We um I think you know Council Torres, uh, I want to make sure that we're not um uh exacerbating unification, but uh but I see other values that we care about in Denver.

Um, sustainability goals as we have more density, then we'll have a more sustainable uh city.

Um it will also be um better for mass transit if we have density.

Uh it'll be uh also sustainable and if uh fewer if we can share uh lawn as a or have no lawn at all.

Like my my building doesn't have a an open space in front of it at all.

Um so I I think on behalf of the people of District 10, I think this makes a whole lot of sense.

Um, but again, I'm one perspective, and um uh and I feel comfortable representing the people I represent by saying I I'm ready for this to go forward and would vote on it vote in uh favor of it uh later this year.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Um, Campbell, followed by Council Member Forest.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

Um, and thank you again for the presentation, um, and and for coming out to one of the community um open houses that I had.

You guys talked to a lot of residents um and had to do a lot of you know explaining and overview and so forth, and I I know that there's a number of people who um took the survey.

I think for me, the the challenge that I still have is it still feels like a one size fits all.

And so I think about a suburban context and what that means for Southeast Denver, which is the majority of what of what my district is.

Um, and we only have a few blocks that have an alley.

We only have a few blocks with straight streets.

Um, and if I look at the slide eight, and I'm the math is if I'm if the math is mathing on this one, um you stop at four units um up to 55 um 100 square feet, and so that is that would be a smaller lot in southeast Denver.

So are we talking when I see this, I'm like, so eight units on a lot in a cul-de-sac, or what would that what does that look like in a suburban context?

I think that this still and I and I love the representing you know the the district that you're representing, but also I just still struggle to see how this makes a lot of sense in a suburban context.

That's the question.

Is there somewhere we could get to that that you would feel is appropriate for a suburban district or suburban context?

Excuse me.

Um I mean, I'm more than willing to have the conversation.

I just feel like the conversation thus far, and I I keep asking, is what does this look like?

What does the modeling look like when you're in a cul-de-sac?

What does this look like when we don't have alleys?

When um you know you have a larger house, and then where do you put you know the other units in the back?

And we've talked about setbacks, and there was a lot of work that happened around ADUs and the setbacks, and I know that that was a huge compromise that was you know put forward, and and that's what allowed I think people in Southeast Denver to be on board with um some of that.

So I would be more than willing to continue the conversation, but I just I don't it's hard um in this particular um uh presentation to see how this how this plays out in some of the streets because I'm thinking like in my mind, I'm driving down the street and I'm thinking, okay, what does it look like on this lot?

And some of these, you know, it might fit on one or two, but I'm thinking, you know, especially some of the cul-de-sacks and with the small entry in the front, you have a larger house.

There's very little room in between the houses and between property lines.

I mean, there's it's I'm just trying to figure out what that looks like in a suburban context.

That's a that's a great question and great comment too.

Um, and you're right.

This this presentation, you know, is designed to go over a lot of information.

Everything that we've done since March.

So there are things that were left out of here.

Um, and uh yeah, we'd love to have that that conversation with you because in the same way that you talked about ADUs, those are exactly the same types of differences that will be different in what we're proposing for a suburban district and an urban district, and you know, so uh we hear the one size fits all a lot, but you know, the everyone will have different sizes, but everyone's getting pants.

You know, we're we're trying to figure out kind of we're trying to figure out what works for different places and and what will we would love to work with you and have that conversation to to figure out where those limits need to be and and uh um uh you know what what gets you comfortable there, we'd we'd love to find it.

Yeah, thank you.

What's the average left size in the neighborhood you have?

Um it depends on which neighborhood you're in.

Um probably what seven, eight, nine.

It's about seventy-five, I think.

Yeah, 7500, yeah.

It depends.

I mean, we've got some lots that are larger.

Maybe one.

Um ours is just under 10.

Just under 10.

So that size chart keeps going on.

Yeah, that size chart.

So I could get roughly nine buildings on my lot.

Is that what the that's what the math would tell me on that on that particular?

I think there is a point, and here it here, as far as the number of units, it doesn't get any larger once you get as far as the maximum floor area beyond four units.

I think it's four units where we have it.

So but it does get larger for the lot size.

So that starting point would be larger for, you know, a 7,000 square foot or for an 8,000 square foot lot or a 10,000 square foot lot.

But there is kind of an overall cap.

And so what we found is that that generally, you know, once you get up to, you know, on a lot this size, like three or four units and you know, maybe five or six units on a on a bigger lot, that it just it they're not able to get the return on the you know, for the sale or rental price for those lots for what the construction cost is and the size, you know, just there's just not enough size.

So that that kind of is what limits things.

Um, but you know, if that limit needs to be somewhere else or lower, then that's what we want to have a conversation with you about.

Can I carry that out?

Just trying to understand this too.

So when I'm looking at slide eight, is there a max unit size?

I mean, there's not really when I look at the math here, but correct.

You're saying the maximum above grade livable area, for instance, on a 7,000 square foot lot because of setbacks because of those restrictions will be 5500.

And so on a larger lot, like 9,000 or 10,000 square feet, then the other things that are going to restrict how many other units you could put on there realistically would be like access requirements, and I I mean right, private access requirements, and how would have we studied what that looks like in the suburban context on those weird lots compared to an urban context that's got a great great question.

Yes, so there will be a limit to just to be just to be super clear.

There will be a table like this that exists in the code that says for you know a lot that is between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet, you know, three units, you have a maximum square footage of 5,000 square feet for that property above grade.

Um that will change, of course, with number of units and in the lot size.

Um we have done some uh some testing on uh several different configurations of suburban lots that are larger that are kind of curved that are on a cul-de-sac that are on a corner.

Um yeah, because it's a whole new set of problems, and and you really can't fit quite as many, then there are you know are complications, especially like with with sewer and water, you do have a private main, and there's so there and you have to have space for that and space for dry vials and things.

So there's you know, there are there are lots of constraining factors that kind of limit, and that's kind of why we have not yet kind of landed on a this max this is maximum four units everywhere or maximum six because it appears to be self-limiting at a fairly reasonable level.

Um uh and kind of yeah, but you know, who are wide open to that conversation.

Okay, thank you.

Anything else?

Okay, uh, Councilman Torres, followed by Kaylin.

Thank you.

Um just picking up on the last conversation.

It's self-limiting, it is also like reality-based in terms of how many can you afford to build, and then how do you make that money back up?

So you could build eight or nine units on a nine to ten thousand square foot lot, but could you even like fill them if you're developing them?

And that's like the calculus that's being done, right?

Which is why it often doesn't actually happen.

Um, one of the things that um can you go to slide 26?

It's your map.

Oh, my hair's looking terrible.

Yeah, I wish I had cash.

Uh one um can you in uh future use of this slide?

Because I think it's a helpful slide, it's just differentiate the colors a little bit more.

So um I could see and what I'm understanding about the application of this is in the prior map, you only showed uh uh new code SU zoning, not chapter 59.

Would we be looking to bridge um unlocking housing choices to chapter 59?

Yes.

Yes, okay, so just just so I I knew that.

Um when I look at my district, which is like middle of the west there, just under that little gray patch of Sloan's Lake, like the that little collection of blue is West Colfax and uh and Villa Park.

Um I what we're seeing there in terms of some of the addition of missing middle housing is what drew drove a lot of the gentrifying conversation that we had, um which resulted in the West Area memo.

Um so um I'm not exclusively just content with missing middle until it also is compatible with middle income, and those are not the same thing when uh we actually see homes built and what they're priced at.

So um the memo still stands, it's when you go from SU to anything more dense.

Um it's it's producing like we've got three projects under construction right now that came through with uh housing covenants for affordability.

Um, and so there when there is I think the will to build, there is the will to build what we ask them to is part of what I'm seeing happen, and so I I do want to support I think the intention of this, particularly the infill bonus.

The keeping preserving the existing home fully matches what the West area plan envisioned around keeping things that are already affordable that are already accessible, um, and um giving folks another option.

It's interesting in your infill bonus graphic.

Um the primary existing home, I'm assuming this is like a 6,500, 7,000 square foot um example.

Um existing home 2200 square feet.

Each of those backyard cottages is 800 square feet.

My primary house is 950 square feet on a 6,500 square foot lot.

Um, and it it is it is occupying such a little part of what my land is.

Um and so that's what I think back to a lot when I'm thinking about what could we be building and and who would it be for?

And it could be one, it could be two, but it is also that preservation.

So the invil bonus is really interesting, I think to me, to what we've built into the West area and even the southwest area plan.

Um, I am um still stuck that um we haven't really done um any assessment of vulnerable to gentrification, um, if these things uh uh if this policy passes, or even right now, um uh what are we seeing happen right there in terms of that?

Because where most of that development took place is where I would categorize West Denver's gentrification right now.

It's in West Colfax and that section of Villa Park.

Um and so uh I would want to see this come forward with some protection thoughts about policy about uh what's available programmatically for folks, we have to make that uh parallel track.

If I for me there's any chance in talking to West Denver residents about what this means for them, um and um that's something that I'm I'm just totally invested in for the next six months as we think about this.

We've got to have that attached, um, or um this feels like an exacerbation um exercise.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Caitlin followed by Alicia.

I mean, I have you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So I think that this has been answered now that we've had the discussion, but I just want to confirm the kind of where you're landing on a recommendation is that it would be all three of those, right?

It would be kind of maximum lot size, infill bonus, and then the affordable, right?

All three in the random.

Okay, and have you done any exploration of kind of one without another, or do you really kind of in evaluating it, see them like working together and you need all three?

Um, that's a great question.

We haven't done the exploration of what they would look like separately because what we've learned from other cities is that um at least the success of the bonuses really need the limitation on size and the changes to building form in order to first of all happen appropriately so they're not so much larger and they actually truly are house scale.

Like that's a really important piece.

But also to incentivize builders to uh to look at these options and kind of be creative because there's a little bit more thinking that has to happen aside that's beyond kind of scraping whatever's there and plopping something new down, um, to you know, picking something that fits on a lot.

Maybe I think that innovation will happen, and I'm really excited to see what happens, but but yes, the um the infill bonus, for example, really uh is helped by the limitation on the on the single unit size so that builders have additional area to play with when they have additional units and are through that kind of incentivized to create these.

Thanks.

Um and on the max lot sizes, I appreciate I think that these numbers have kind of gone up a little bit from the first time we saw them, which I appreciate.

I think that um they feel a little bit more realistic to the houses that we are seeing kind of built today and what families desire, and I because I think one of my worries when they were lower in number was we would almost kind of create like a commodity of bigger existing houses in Denver that would suddenly price higher because you can't build that big anymore.

And so I think trying to really be thoughtful about those maximum lot sizes to match, you know, what's a reasonable thing that a family would want, and we don't want them to not build in Denver because they want to cross cross a different you know city boundary to get the bigger house size, so finding the right maximum lot size.

Um I just want to echo a couple of the comments that I heard around the test bits, and I think these are really helpful, and I think like more of them would be great on the on all of the different models and especially on the maximum lot sizes, how they work with the different unit counts, and because I think part of it is understanding that the building form, I mean fingers crossed, right, doesn't look that different, um, and sort of the size of the building that it's taking up on the lot can feel comfortable to something going in, but I don't know that there's that comfort yet, and seeing that especially in different contexts.

I was gonna say, yeah, suburban especially.

Um and then uh to just tag on to what councilman Torres was just sharing with our district.

I think you know, if this is to proceed, I would really love to understand how we want to track and measure, you know, outcomes from it, um, because I think uh, you know, best of intentions sometimes, but I think seeing are we getting the results, what you know, what are people choosing, um, and and understanding how that might be monitored.

Um, and then the last one is just on the expected outcomes side.

Um, maybe I'll just read the the root policy research um report.

But I was just really curious on the kind of especially the like if like the the annual maximum number was a lot.

Um it was a high number, I thought, um, and just understanding how we reached that as kind of what we could see annually.

Yeah, uh it's in the really short version and probably slightly inaccurate version is they looked at like ideal market conditions in the best case scenario for a neighborhood and kind of said, okay, what if that happens everywhere?

And that that was that situation, which is which is you know, would be difficult to get to that point, but it's we're really booming, you know, that's what we might see.

Um, but it but you know, to most likely we'll see something in the middle which um you know is we have you know hundreds of thousands or or um around 200,000 single unit homes in Denver, so relative to that, it's uh it's spread out across the city.

Um, yeah, those those initial homes that were removed or are you know it's not a big number, not gonna make a huge impact on on housing supply, but provides options for people to you know buy something or get into a neighborhood and be part of the community, so um uh yeah, check out the report, it's, it's super interesting.

Um yeah, and then just one last um I just thank you for sharing on slide 21 the key strategy results and kind of the the information from the community.

I mean, I think it it just goes to show that this conversation needs to continue with the broader Denver community.

I mean, this is really mixed, right?

I don't know that I see I've never seen it in all and I just think we have to acknowledge that that um, you know, if this is something to proceed, I think that there's a lot of education and discussion to happen in the broader Denver community to kind of bring it forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh who do I have up next?

I have Alicia followed by Julie, followed by Mary, followed by Rachel, followed by Councilmember Whatton, followed by Cashman Didney.

Um I have to keep track, I got it.

Just wanted to know.

I wanted to uh reiterate a point that uh councilman Torres said about kind of having the the policy follow this.

So um, you know, Councilman Hines made the comment that um, you know, you're up for you're okay with you know getting rid of single-family zoning like Minneapolis, but one of the some of the key differences in Minneapolis is that they have an anti-displacement fund, they have reduced property tax rate in exchange for deed restrictions up to 10 years, they have um very robust tenant protections, um inclusionary zoning for larger projects, which I think in Denver we also have the EHA, um, free and low-cost energy assessments and cost sharing for solar efficiency upgrades.

Those are pretty significant incentives um for developers um to um implement this, right?

And so these are some of the guardrails that are there, and I think um it's really you know, the cost um slides that we have on here don't necessarily account I think for the permitting time.

Um maybe it does, um, they do and uh of a realistic project schedule.

Um I think it's on there, it's on the the most recent advisory committee slide has a better breakdown of of all of the factors.

Um just because I know that's a big cost, but also just all the impact fees, right?

So almost every single jurisdiction, Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin, Portland, they all waive fee impact fees, um, and so they're a little bit more friendly to the homeowner who wants to develop.

I feel like what we have right now is very friendly to affordable housing developers only.

They have the capital and the way in which to do deed restriction to fit in their capital stack nicely.

So I think that the way it's written is gonna benefit maybe five developers in Denver, and even though I know we're in a housing crisis and every single unit matters, and I think this is a step in the right direction.

Um, I'm concerned about uh the impact versus intent.

Um, and the fact is most of our city is built by market rate developers.

Um I think that uh when we talk about equity, um they also have to be part of that conversation, which I think we're trying to get there with some of the deed restriction pieces, but then also um in the slides in planning or in the steering committee also showed like mention of subsidy to make these deals pencil, and there still wasn't clear um guidance on who's providing that subsidy.

Um is that coming from the city?

And the city afford that um for the nonprofit developers, they'll have subsidies through their capital stack um through YTEC or other right tax exemptions from the federal government, they'll be able to get and trade for private equity.

Um, and so those are things that aren't totally fleshed out and and so I'm concerned about having a blanket kind of zoning change without those guardrails, or it disproportionately benefiting a few for maybe like um, you know, less than 80 house lady, less than 80 units citywide, and maybe that that's okay.

Um and then the last thing I want to point out to you that was pointed out in the steering committee was that the so HUD sets those rates for affordability, but it represents a third of that household's income that can go to housing.

So the price that we see is that's a third of so when you think about the overall what they're making, right?

It's not a good reflection necessarily of fact to I think someone mentioned that about what they can actually afford.

Um I think that 70 percent uh AMI numbers should be um scrutinized a little harder and see if we can't do deeper affordability on that.

Um again, we want people to be able to qualify for them.

Um so I think having a wider range makes sense that's more deeply affordable.

Thanks.

Okay.

Can I respond to some of that?

Is that okay?

Um so yeah, great points.

Um and uh as you mentioned, you said some of this during during our meeting.

Um yeah, you're you're exactly right that that the especially the affordable housing bonus is steered or directed towards particularly affordable housing developers.

Um be clear that that subsidy needed was that kind of gap in that capital stack that you identified and and was just clearly to show that it's not likely to be taken up by uh market rate developers, and as we talked about during the advisory committee meeting, um it this is a good way to think about this as almost like a pilot, right?

There are very few developers builders who can make this kind of full redevelopment of a property happen for this missing middle housing type because they have the resources to do so and the additional funding and and all of the um all of those resources in place.

Um so that's gonna, you know, even though only is going to be a few houses, you know, uh each each year potentially.

Um it's a good it's a good pilot and it's it's working in the right direction.

Um you're exactly right.

We need to identify some of those other incentives, and we hope to do that during this period of the project right now, which we're in, which is kind of this refinement of of these strategies now that we've kind of have this really good framework.

Um the market rate developers are really uh, you know, we're pointing them towards the building the infill development rather than McMansion, rather than the really large scrape and rebuilding um in order to create more costs, you know, lower cost units on properties while still adding value and still adding um something that works for them.

But that's the direction that you know more that the market rate um is for now.

So great points.

I think I think you've identified a lot of things that we're that we're gonna be looking at, and we'll we'll talk with the advisory committee about these things over the next uh next month and and we're looking forward to that, but thanks.

Thanks for your comment.

Just wanted to kind of add some more of that context about kind of our intent is that you know, we are going to have low uptake on that, though the um affordability bonus and market rate developers are mostly going to be looking at the infill.

So, thank you.

Great points.

Next up we have Julie followed by Mary.

Um, taking a different spin from a landscape architect perspective, so bear with me.

Um I just wondered when you did your calculations on the square footage on the lots.

Did you take into consideration additional open space requirements beyond setbacks?

I'm looking at envisioning when I saw those sketches, you know, the now impervious versus pervious calculations are completely screwed.

And I'm wondering um what kinds of mediation we might be able to also incorporate in this requirement.

Yeah, great question.

So we are taking the urban house and suburban house form and reducing from there.

Those forms have uh maximum building coverages that are staying in place.

So what what you'll you know, what's currently protected for open space uh beyond um beyond setbacks and things is um going to be kind of what it is today for a single unit house.

Um additionally, we'll be really looking at our uh the another project that's moving forward through our department is the Denver Resilient Landscapes project to take up the mantle on some of those impervious um uh uh impervious land questions and kind of whatever recommendations come out of that to, you know, uh or or whatever changes would affect house scale buildings and in house scale neighborhoods will apply to to anything that we're proposed here.

So looking forward to rolling that in as well.

So uh but but yeah, great great questions.

Anything else?

We have Mary.

Yeah, bye Rachel.

Um thank you.

I'm so excited for this.

Um I am primarily and and like most emphatically um excited about the possibility of this as a wealth building strategy.

So um I'm ready for the day when we flip our affordable housing approach on its head, and instead of you know creating opportunities for people who can't afford market rate housing, we create opportunities for them to have other means of getting money in their pocket and living the life that they want.

Um I also really like opportunities to decommodify housing.

Um so the idea of you know requiring preservation of the existing unit, I think is um an interesting way to do that, and the affordability requirements an interesting way to do that.

I do have uh a little bit of concern, having been somebody who lived in rent control housing in a different city, is um the incentive to preserve substandard housing, um, and to keep things that aren't necessarily meeting our habitability standards.

And so I'm just curious if there's a timeline of saying, you know, we have to in order to use this preserve the existing home for five years, 10 years, but I don't think it should be a 30-year requirement.

Um and so just really thinking about that and not encouraging people to keep units that aren't good for people to live in.

Um I'm also very excited to see how this interacts with the housing needs assessment as well, um, and looking at the revised goals from host, including how we can help homeowners be part of the housing solutions in our city and benefit from creating more housing, so kind of right along with what you were saying, Alicia.

Um right now, our current one-year production goals for new income restricted units through hosts is 575 units.

So looking at what could be created through this program could really help us set our targets far more in line with what our needs are, as opposed to just kind of nibbling around the edges the way we've been doing for the last um several years.

Um, going back to the wealth building strategy piece though, and this kind of I feel like gets to what you were saying, Councilwoman Torres.

Um, you know, I'm working a lot in the community around the Burnham Yards development right now.

I would love to see the legacy homeowners there have the opportunity to add units that they could short-term rent and benefit from all the income that's coming there.

And at the same time, I think, you know, if we're thinking about how this interfaces with existing short-term rentals, that's also an incentive for people to come in, even more of an incentive for people to come in and lowball those homeowners so they have an opportunity to add units that they can short-term rent and benefit economically for that.

So, you know, it's kind of back to that um issue that we always face when we deal with land use regulations of we want neutral tools that are equitable, and uh those two pieces just don't work together really well.

Um so, you know, thinking about how we're linking those policies.

I think there's a lot of sensitivity that we need to have around that to not limit the upside for um community members that have you know not had those opportunities historically without giving away this store to uh private equity and investors that might be coming in looking for a quick turn.

Um just a couple of other questions that I had, and I apologize if these were covered in previous meetings.

I'm just gonna run down them and respond to what you want, and I can reach out about the rest.

I'm curious about how the square footage needs to be allocated across the different units, if it needs to be equal, or if I could have a 200 square foot unit and then a really nice big house.

Um I'm also uh very interested in the AMI levels, specifically on the rental side for the income restricted unit.

And I I actually I'm struggling with what the right answer is here.

I know on our West Denver Renaissance Collaborative uh ADU program, the AMIs were set at 80%.

So this feels low to me to look at a 70% AMI threshold, and I like the idea of having as much opportunity to house people as possible without that upper limit.

At the same time, looking at vacancy rates around the city, I am concerned about requiring people to go through compliance for living in an income restricted unit at higher AMIs when there are other rental opportunities that they wouldn't have to do that.

So that just feels like a really hard question for me of what the right AMI is on the rental side.

And so looking at, you know, what they might be able to do on a property, also the land trust model.

And then the last one, I promise, is um, you know, how looking at that that nine units, you know, kind of as our threshold before we get into the EHA, um, how does this impact the fee and lie that they're currently paying?

And does that go away if you know rather they're having a affordable unit, if they're taking the option to preserve the existing unit and adding units, do they still have to pay that linkage fee?

So just some of the real in the weeds stuff that we like to nerd out on.

Yeah, this is great.

And you're like right on time for like this is these are the questions that we're diving into right now.

So I don't think I have a question for it for like a set an answer for any one of those questions to be honest.

These are all things that we are like that we have on the list of of questions we need to address.

So, I like to look forward to more quick uh clarification I could offer on short term rentals.

Yeah.

So the city's licensing system for short-term rentals does require owner occupancy.

Uh, so an accessory dwelling unit that's on the same zone lot and and is um an accessory to the to a primary house can be rented out as a short-term rental if the owner lives in the primary house.

In a scenario like this, if somebody builds a new unit in the back of their property, uh uh and sells it, or you know, uh uh they would have to actually live in it to be able to rent it out as a short-term rental.

So there would be some licensing limitations to renting out a a separate primary dwelling unit as a short-term rental.

How are we gonna maintain the distinction between an ADU and separate dwelling units?

Yeah, I think that it would sort of depend on how the project went through the permitting process in the first place.

I think that's something we definitely have to we'll work on clearly.

These would be different from an accessory dwelling unit, which can be used as long as the owner lives on site as a short-term rental.

It gets a little bit more complicated when we're talking about separate primary dwelling units that could be sold to different owners.

We just create an LLC though.

A corporation that owns one.

That's how it would be done.

Has there been like have you examined the ADU building form versus like the building forms we're talking about for the national units?

And they're not the same, I'm assuming that you could be organized.

Um they will be pretty similar.

We're gonna bring in all the work that we did for ADUs and the ADUs have like the size limitation on them and things like that, but um, but as far as like you know, the slightly taller height in the rear 35 and some setback changes and things like that from um that came out of that ADUs at Denver project, we're gonna wrap that into what we're looking at with building forms because they're a little bit more permissive and a little bit more realistic for an actual building in the back.

So um, but yeah, the the kind of initial designation of building form and things like that like might be more complicated, and I think that is that's a question still that we need to like nail down the details on.

Um, yeah, these are the these are the tricky questions.

These are the good ones.

All right, next up we have Rachel followed by Council Member Watson.

Then I'll get in, then I'll go back to you.

Okay.

Um so starting off, uh, your question to us was if this was brought forward today, would we support it?

And if not, what would we need to see to support it?

Um I think there's a lot, and there's been really, really insightful questions uh today, but if this were brought forward today, I would be supporting it.

I think there will be a lot that we learn in implementation and things that that arise that you know, despite the really brilliant people around this table and within CPD, there will be something and a lot of some things where we say, well, didn't think about that.

Um we need to amend uh this ordinance.

And so I appreciate all of the work that's been done so far.

Um a couple of thoughts and and questions I had.

Uh you know, I know like there's this tension, and and even in the survey responses between protecting existing neighborhood context, um, sort of versus like even allowing the opportunity of home ownership for the kids growing up in this city.

And um, and you know, when I look at a lot of the neighborhoods, uh, a number of neighborhoods in Denver, even the still, you know, attainable neighborhoods, the kids who grew up in that neighborhood are not good, like they do not have a chance to buy a home in that neighborhood.

And I think this is a really interesting opportunity to give um a lot of particularly young people the opportunity to to purchase in the neighborhood they grew up in, um, also for older people to downsize and also stay in the community that they grew up in, and so I that is I think a really great opportunity for our city.

Um, as many others have mentioned, you know, this is one tool.

I also, you know, I don't think that we should expect this one tool to solve all the problems.

I think it needs to be followed up with other tools that both help um uh decrease the opportunity for gentrification of these neighborhoods and also create financing that is accessible to people other than private equity.

Um I mentioned in one of our previous conversations that I didn't really see today, but I think it potentially from from a messaging standpoint and and particularly with some of the more suburban contexts, um, and on these renderings, I think might be helpful is additional context on the building form.

So right now, in you know, most of uh councilwoman Romere Campbell's district and most of councilman Cashman's district, even if you were to want to um preserve the existing building, build no new structure on your property, but convert your 1200 square foot basement or 900 square foot basement into a unit for your recent college grad or your mother-in-law, you can't do that.

And that feels to me like if we're talking about where can we get to a place where every neighborhood in Denver is giving something.

Um if I'm somebody that lives in Romero Campbell's district, I feel a lot more comfortable with um some of that in instances, and that I think can be done by through building form than then the idea of like, oh, maybe there's gonna be seven new units next door to me.

Um question I had is around the affordability bonus, and I know these there's these two conversations that are happening simultaneously.

One is around this and one is around sort of how how are we thinking through incentivizing affordable housing generally?

And my understanding is one of the takeaways from that conversation is that EHA hasn't really delivered like this idea of density bonuses has not really delivered the units that we thought it would from particularly from market rate developments to Alicia's point.

And so my question there is like if that formula is not working, why are we doing it here also without some sort of connected subsidy?

Like if we're seeing that market rate developers are not gonna do this, um, because it doesn't pencil, uh, which is sort of the takeaway that's happening with the EHA conversation.

I think those two conversations should sync up because if it's not working over there, my guess is it probably also isn't gonna work to deliver the units we want to see here.

Yeah, I can I can answer that.

Sorry, can I just say how many?

So Chris Gleisner came to the planning board and he said EHA delivered 33 feed restricted units out of 23,000 permit.

Which is failure.

Which is really shocking.

Shocking.

Is it the interest rate?

EHA, or is it a combination of multiple factors?

Um, that's a great question, but um, extended the time for people who got in under the line before EHA went into effect.

I'm in a phone and friend.

Sorry.

But yeah, yeah.

Um my name's John Colorelli.

I work with the Department of Housing Stability.

Um, I'm gonna try to answer all this in like a general way, but I I think we would probably take issue with the or I don't know.

I don't know if we would agree with the statement that EHA is not delivering.

I think we'd agree with the statement that EHA has not delivered yet, but a large part of that was the grace period issue, and that we saw some like six-fold increase in permits right before the grace period.

A lot of those projects have been working their way through the system.

And for between the years of 2022 to 2024, I think we signed something like 12.

And I'm trying to pull these from the top of my head, but I think we signed something like 12 EHA agreements that have now resulted in 33 units.

They were smaller scale projects that didn't get in before the grace period.

But in 2025, we signed somewhere around 30 of those agreements, and those are gonna result in several hundred EHA units, and they just haven't come online yet because of the timeline between getting your SDP approved, getting through the construction process, yada yada yada.

So it has a lot more to do with just market rate development really spiking in mid-2022 than going away for two and a half years.

And now that it's increasing again, we're seeing it produce at the levels that we expected, which is the numbers that Mary quoted, which was about 450 to 500 units a year, is what we expect from EHA at this point.

Or not including Light Tech units.

That is not including my tech.

Okay, okay, that's good.

Thank you.

So, anything else?

So, and then for from our perspective, right?

So, this is this just acts totally differently, right?

Since it's not inclusionary zoning policy, right?

It's a it's a bonus on top.

Um, and you can almost kind of think about it as you know, that the on the far end, and in what we see many other cities doing, most probably the majority of other cities who are implementing missing middle housing project or uh policy of some type, they will just allow those additional units without the requirements for affordable units or without the requirements that you preserve the house.

Our strategy is is slightly more incremental, and part of the reason is that we're we're treating in a way this affordability strategy like a pilot.

You know, those those mission-driven nonprofit developers who are going to be developing in that space are few and far between.

There's only a handful of them, but they are the kind of those are the developers that you want to see doing a pilot project in your neighborhood, right?

They they have the outcome of the community in mind.

Um and kind of the so the think about it like that's kind of why we're okay with with the lower outcome there.

It's a pilot project, it'll work, it's it's it's income uh it's income restricted, um, it really helps provide for this need.

Um market rate developers uh have this other option available through that you know, the the retention bonus.

Um, you know, as combined, though they're able to add these these housing types that we that we really really need, you know, starter homes in Denver.

Interact real quick, please.

Okay, I'm done.

Thank you for cutting me off.

We can go EHA all day, every day.

We're not gonna go there right now because we're talking about unlocking housing choices, and that's my job.

Council Member Watson.

Uh, thanks so much.

And uh yeah, I I appreciate the the context and the discussion around this, the continuous discussion around this, and um I appreciate the thoughts, Rachel, that you brought forward.

Uh um uh you and I were at an event at a house.

We uh in Whittier.

Um we have very small lots, practically the entire neighborhood.

Small lots.

If you were gonna do an ADU before we passed uh a citywide ADUs, you mostly would have to do like a variance uh to fit in the back.

Um we were um in uh a person's home, we had an event um that has a double lot, but they're not able to build uh a second home on that lot because it's still too small.

So we would have to go through a whole lot of process.

I think in neighborhoods like Whittier, like Cole, um uh a little bit of Skyland, this makes complete sense for ensuring that you preserve um that primary home and you provide the opportunity for folks to stay in place.

Um I think it's um uh for these very um uh quirky sized neighborhoods, and um I was even shocked as I um began discussing this with folks even before we named it this we call it missing middle housing, we're calling it in Park Hill.

Many have been the discussions I had with neighbors uh and and uh front porch is they have much larger lots than the rest of District 9.

Um but a lot of the elders whose kids graduated went to East and to see you, went to wherever the heck they went, and they came back.

They can't afford to live in Park Hill.

They can't, the kids can't go to the schools that they went to.

Um and so these families aren't looking for scraping, and then the the elders are looking for can I have something on the lot where my children can live with me, or I can live in a smaller place and they take over the larger home.

So I see this as an option.

So to answer your first question, um the answer is yes.

I uh if this was to come before us, I would be supportive of it because I see it as one tool in the toolbox.

There's plenty of stuff that still needs to be fixed with this, um, ensuring for displacement, ensuring that we are um looking at what the affordability, what the AMI levels are, all that is necessary.

But uh, this is a tool, and the same dialogue we had on ADU citywide with parts of my neighborhood that were concerned with it.

Um we pull the data of how many ADUs have been built in the communities, and some folks were you know frantic about um, well, you're gonna have an ADU right next to my house.

And it it it hasn't happened, um, and and it is providing the opportunity.

It's not mandating the ADUs on every street, and it's not mandating that you do these types of unlocking housing choices on each street, but I know the neighbors, especially in D9, that want to stay in District 9, don't want to move out east or move up north, they want to stay in in Denver.

Um, I think folks are gonna um folks who can, whether it's 10, 15 or whatever, they're going to look at this.

So, looking forward to digging deeper, but I think we've been, I mean, it's really thoughtful dialogue for a while.

There's a lot of stuff to be fixed.

I am more than ready for us to start moving this forward and seeing what we can do with um this as one of the the additional tools within our toolkit.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

Um, DJ.

Oh, thank you.

Thanks to everyone with their comments and I think to Rachel's point in the ASCO, would we support it today?

I absolutely think that this is headed in the right direction, and I I think I would.

I also believe that there will be calibration, and we have to ensure that whatever is built into an ordinance to support this in the future has some easy ways for us to go and make some corrections without a two-year process to make the correction, depending on the the severity of it, you know.

Um so we have to just think about the implementation scheme.

I get I kind of start nerding out on logistics when it comes to actually adding units.

And I'm wondering, I'm assuming the root policy study maybe did this, but did we look at the specific cost to a single renovation of a single family unit or addition of an ADU?

The infrastructure cost for that homeowner who was told you need to upgrade your sewer line, you need to make the southern connection, you need to rebuild the clay pipe in front of your house because the city hasn't done it.

Um, have we looked at those particular costs and built those into the cost of what development would be if we were to add one or two units to a single family home?

And then part two, have we looked at the city's overall infrastructure capital improvement budget and how much of that budget may in the future be dedicated or need to be dedicated to supporting comprehensive upgrades of infrastructure so that homeowners can take part in a program like this and make it more sustainable.

But to see the line of homeowners saying, Oh, this looks like a really cool program, and then they start leaving the line when they find out that it's going to be extremely costly just to add one or two units in the back because of a clay pipe.

Yeah, great question.

I'll answer super quick.

So the the uh our assumptions in the um the feasibility testing that we did were on a property that has fairly simple circumstances and wouldn't need to replace anything for the existing house, but it does include the cost of putting a new line and new tap fees and things like that.

Um so there are likely scenarios that you know would encounter some additional costs as far as the overall capacity goes, uh, that is not an area where any of the infrastructure entities are concerned with with overall capacity.

Uh things are typically overbuilt, and in a lot of cases, the use isn't what it historically was, since not as many people are living in houses like they used to in a lot of our urban neighborhoods.

So electricity is typically the one that's strained.

Um water and sewer often have more capacity, but it is definitely a case-by-case basis.

We're talking to one of our committee members who was looking at building an ADU, and and you know, they said, Oh, you know, if this this block is a little bit more than half the capacity, so you know there will come a point, you know, if if there's really good uptake on certain places that you know, a whole line will need to be replaced.

So there are going to be those situations, but okay.

Well great, thank you.

Thank you.

Um, so to answer the question, my neighborhood is mixed, and I think if you look at the slide that has, I think it's one of the last slides there, you can see Northwest Denver has taken a predominantly big chunk of the missing middle.

It's my whole entire council district.

That has, yeah, that slide, that's all my council district up until West Colfax and part of my council district before two years ago was West Colfax.

So if you all want to see how it works, go to Tennyson.

If you all want to see how it works, go to Jefferson Park.

And I will say that there are big proponents of this in Northwest Denver who want to see this happen.

And there's people who have lived through all of that and are adamant about not having this move forward because of the rapid change.

And if you look at that slide, it's a lot around Tennyson, where we went and we took down single unit zoning and put in TU zoning and put in a long tennis in and upzoned all Tennyson, and down in Lower Highland, where you had attainable housing, you had small houses, you really did, um, and they got wiped out, and five five-story apartment buildings went in, um, whole blocks, two blocks, three blocks.

Um, and even in lower sunny side, you'll see where there was attainable housing right next to industrial, right?

It was this really weird area, and then it got upzoned and now it is apartment buildings.

And so I would say Northwest Denver has been the poster child for unlocking housing traces, and I feel like that's why I spent from 2019 up until like two years ago, I think.

No, up until like last year, I've been doing overlays because of the cause of unlocking housing choice because of the missing middle.

If you look, it didn't work.

We were getting McMansions in Sunnyside, and so we actually came up with this idea of having a smaller um floor of smaller square footage.

That capping from Northwest Denver having porches came out of a highland overlay.

I mean, I can name the overlays I've done, I won't go into them because Council President Torres had to live in my my extravagance overlay extravaganzas.

But I think I've done seven in Northwest Denver because of all of this and trying to figure out how to combat it, like how to meet this missing middle and understand my family, my 24-year old moved out to Arapaho Road and I 25 because she can't live in Denver and my niece who we're having raise um she moved into her bedroom and my son still lives with us.

So we still have a house of four and my house is 920 square feet and it's really quaint.

But the hard part about what this with these show is you're saying that has easy infrastructure.

I have a 1943 home that has four beautiful trees on it one in the rear setback one in the two in the side setback and two what two in the front so how am I supposed to even build this around any of those trees because the forester probably would not let me cut down those trees.

They're gonna have problems with me cutting down healthy trees and then I don't have an alley in the back and so I would have to figure out how to put that and I have looked into an accessory dwelling unit.

I really have and I'm one of those those houses that has clay pipes and I'm like I know that we all think that city council's a glamorous job we have lots of access to a lot of things but we don't get paid as much as the private sector and so I've really been at the city for 14 years and I've not been able to update all of the infrastructure on my house right now like I wish I could have instead I've really been working for the residents of Denver.

And so I've given this we have this schism in Northwest Denver where if you go I'm sure you met people who were all adamant about unlocking housing traces and you met people in my neighborhood who were like absolutely not they had lived through the whole entire redevelopment of Tennyson of Lower Highland and of Jefferson Park where Jefferson Park I know I'm a broken record.

It was really one of my most diverse neighborhoods and now I can't get anyone to live there.

All the slot homes are rentals they're all rentals they were all really built really shoddy and nobody wants to live there and my schools are closing because I don't have people who want to move into those slot home form because it doesn't compatible with having kids and then my 83 year old mom doesn't want to live in there.

I don't want to live in there I have a bad knee I'm like I don't want to live on five like three stories and going up and down so the form really matters in this conversation and to councilman Torres's point when she and I were working on the West Area plan I'll never forget she and I sat down and we were like are we doing in harm to our our neighborhood are we actually setting our neighborhood up to have every single developer that used to be in Jefferson Park and in Sunnyside and in Berkeley go straight into West Westwood and really like decimate her neighborhood and we've said yes we were and we actually had to work with CPD and write a memo that says that we actually had to come up with something different for that West area plan because of the unintended consequences of opening up that development so I think that this project is so important to have because I have seen my neighborhood in my lifetime my small little 47 years of life totally change totally change in front of my eyes and there's good parts of it amazing parts amazing access and there's some really really sad parts of gentrification in my neighborhood that I've had to live through I don't have little carneserias in the corner anymore.

I don't have little like every single carnesaria in my neighborhood is gone.

Every little grocery store every little corner grocery store is gone unless you want to go to local war and you want to spend like save a lot.

Yeah or save a lot like I have save a lot on one hand right and then I have local where you can buy I think the last time I went there I bought one bag of groceries for a hundred and seventy five dollars so that was a that was save a lot.

It's no longer there, yeah.

So this conversation is really important, but to Rachel's point, I would love to have my mom's house be able to turn into a place where my the grandkids could live.

I would love to be able to turn these other houses into, and it's really hard with infrastructure.

I've looked at doing an accessory dwelling unit for my my mom who we want to age in place and knock down her garage and build a single unit accessory dwelling unit so she can move in there and then like my grand my son or other grandkids.

It's really hard to leverage that.

And she ran Mercy Housing Colorado.

I mean, we're not talking about somebody who doesn't her whole entire background is building affordable housing.

And she we can't figure it out.

We can't crack it because we would take all the equity in her entire house and have to take out a mortgage to be able to get it done.

So I think that I've learned a lot from all of these questions.

I love getting into the nitty-gritty, and I love um making sure that we have these conversations because we when I got on council, we didn't have these conversations up until what, 2019.

Yeah.

So I love that we have these conversations with planning board.

I think we should keep them going.

And I think Caitlin, I think you said we need to do more outreach.

I know I need to do more outreach.

I think four people in Jefferson Park took this survey.

And um Chaffee Park, where is it's my council district that has like some of the biggest land.

I think five people took it, which means five people didn't know about it, and that would where a lot of this could go.

Um so I think all of us need have homework to do and tell five people when you're having a drink, just text them.

That's what I do.

I'm crazy.

I'm like, oh, you want to know what I'm working on here?

And I text them the survey, and I'm like, feel it out.

Um next time I see them, I'm like, hey, did you take that survey?

I'm like kind of a stalker, so that we can actually get people taking this survey because it's really this table and all of us at this table that really need to make sure that we're um making sure that people in Denver know about this because I had to live through um people not knowing about it with group living, and it was a lot.

Thank you so much for the time.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you all for your work.

Question.

Yes.