Metropolis planning officers quietly launched an uncommon edict this fall that has loud implications for the way forward for a number of long-overlooked west Denver neighborhoods.
Denver’s Group Planning and Growth introduced that till additional discover, its workers wouldn’t suggest approval for any rezoning purposes in six neighborhoods in the event that they sought to permit builders to construct higher-density tasks, like row properties, on single-family house properties.
Metropolis officers noticed that Oct. 10 memo as step one in pumping the brakes on denser new growth within the west-central portion of Denver. Their purpose: to stem the tide of gentrification traits within the traditionally Latino space.
The rezoning pause will probably be reevaluated, the memo says, when “extra affordability instruments to protect and/or create inexpensive housing can be found to be paired with rezonings to increased depth districts.”
The planning division’s new coverage has assist from Metropolis Councilwoman Jamie Torres, who grew up in west Denver and now represents the realm. It additionally has been applauded by some longtime residents of the affected neighborhoods — West Colfax, Villa Park, Solar Valley, Barnum, Barnum West and Valverde.
“We do want an opportunity to have a look at some completely different choices and instruments and incentives,” Villa Park resident Kathy Sandoval stated, citing potential methods to spur the creation of latest inexpensive housing in her a part of city. “(We) additionally want to have a look at ways in which we will hold residents within the neighborhoods they’ve been in for years and years and years.”
However the planning division’s transfer has additionally drawn criticism.
Making it more durable for property house owners to show single-family properties into tons that might host a number of connected properties is rankling some housing advocates, who level out that Denver’s inexpensive housing disaster is being pushed by restricted provide.
“Growth is a symptom attributable to provide searching for to satisfy demand,” stated Ryan Keeney, the president of the housing advocacy group YIMBY Denver; the acronym stands for “Sure In My Yard,” a rejoinder to NIMBY-type opposition.
“Stopping rezonings in west Denver will do little to forestall demographic turnover as long as land and residential costs proceed to extend,” he stated.
Group Planning and Growth’s pause on recommending approval for single-family property zoning adjustments applies to the six neighborhoods lined by the West Space Plan. That plan units long-term, resident-informed steering for the long run growth and character of these neighborhoods. The Metropolis Council authorized it in March 2023.
What’s behind new stance — and what it means
Metropolis planning officers say they wish to clarify that they don’t seem to be stopping any property house owners from submitting purposes to upzone.
Zoning adjustments are dealt with by means of a quasi-judicial course of, with the Metropolis Council having the ultimate say. However metropolis workers put together stories and shows that council members overview when voting on these requests.
It’s uncommon to see an utility even make it to the council stage with out group planning workers discovering that it meets the standards for adoption. The October memo has already resulted in some candidates pulling again their requests.
Officers say that with the memo, they’re doing their greatest to stick to the guiding rules within the West Space Plan, which recommends addressing inexpensive housing and lowering involuntary displacement.
“Any property proprietor should still submit a rezoning utility, and will probably be reviewed in opposition to rezoning standards and present plan steering,” division spokeswoman Alexandra Foster wrote in an electronic mail. “Given present circumstances for growth, CPD has alerted candidates that they may doubtless obtain a suggestion of denial for rezoning from a single-unit district to a extra intense district.”
4 rezoning purposes within the affected neighborhoods had been withdrawn as of Dec. 18, and 4 remained in course of, Foster stated.
As for when CPD may change its stance, that may rely on how rapidly officers can develop instruments to guard present income-qualified housing in coordination with town’s Division of Housing Stability, Foster stated.
For Torres, the supporting information that CPD shared within the memo have been placing.
Residence values within the West Space Plan neighborhoods elevated 155%, on common, from 2010 to 2022, a interval when house values skyrocketed citywide. However that spike has corresponded with a speedy decline in ethnic range within the space.
These West Space neighborhoods have been made up of 70% Hispanic and nonwhite residents in 2010. By 2022, that share had fallen to about 41%, in line with information town rounded up. Median family incomes climbed by 250% between 2017 and 2022.
“I believe what’s in danger is we are literally sacrificing the individuals who already stay right here with the intention to make room for the density for the long run,” Torres stated.
In terms of growth exercise, rezoning purposes are solely the tip of the iceberg, she famous. The CPD memo highlighted that the West Colfax neighborhood noticed 97 residential demolition permits pulled between 2021 and 2023. The whole variety of permits pulled citywide over that interval was 1,982 — or roughly 27 per neighborhood.
“That is taking place proper now all over, and it’s not simply in rezonings,” Torres stated of the transformation in west Denver neighborhoods.
West Colfax has grow to be the newest epicenter of Denver’s evolution right into a denser, larger metropolis. This spring, actual property agent Caitlin Clough instructed JHB for a bigger story on city change alongside West Colfax Avenue that the prospect of with the ability to construct new, denser tasks alongside the once-hardscrabble hall had traders “licking their chops.”
Within the view of the YIMBY group, one of the simplest ways to restrict the gentrifying results of latest growth in susceptible, traditionally lower-income neighborhoods like Barnum and West Colfax is to make it simpler to construct extra housing all over the place.
In different phrases: to put off single-family zoning in Denver altogether. It’s a step that different cities like Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, have already taken. In metro Denver, Littleton is contemplating that transfer.
“Probably the most equitable strategy to fixing our housing provide scarcity is a citywide upzone,” Keeney stated. “This might maximize the creation of latest properties for Denverites to stay in whereas avoiding the wholesale transformation of any specific neighborhood, corresponding to these in west Denver referred to by this memo.”
“There’s a sense of urgency”
As metropolis officers hunt down methods to melt the affect of that growth, Torres is considering potential insurance policies that might make a distinction.
“There’s a big hole within the code about which constructing kinds are allowed in several zone districts. We don’t see plenty of triplexes and quads in single-family tons. We see accumulations of properties for row properties that find yourself being very costly,” she stated.
In 2025, CPD is enterprise a “lacking center housing” venture aimed toward fostering a extra light improve in density in applicable locations. Within the broader housing dialog, lacking center housing falls in between massive condominium buildings and the single-family properties that could be unattainable for working-class residents.
Such middle-density housing can take various shapes, together with duplexes and extra reasonably priced townhomes.
The venture additionally contains searching for methods to incentivizing adaptive reuse of extra buildings for housing and creating new on-site inexpensive housing necessities for smaller-scale growth, division officers instructed councilmembers throughout a committee listening to Dec. 17.
Denver’s inexpensive housing mandate — to incorporate income-qualified, reduced-rent items in a constructing or pay steep charges in lieu of that building — presently applies solely to new tasks of 10 items or extra.
Torres stated she wished discussions to focus not simply on laws and restrictions, but in addition on incentives and helps that is likely to be obtainable — together with monetary help for residents making an attempt to keep up or enhance their properties.
For her, what’s taking place in west Denver is just not a easy numbers sport. Seven connected homes in a brand new rowhome venture are usually not all the time higher for the group than one older home that was extra inexpensive and helped a household construct generational wealth.
Her district is already contributing to the densification of town as a result of it’s house to Ball Area, which is now cleared to be the epicenter of a brand new city neighborhood.
“I got here into this area wanting to maintain residents in west Denver. These households have names, they’ve tales right here and people are issues which might be essential to me,” she stated. “There’s a sense of urgency round this (dialog) not taking years.”
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