Denver City Council clears way for affordable housing project for LGBTQ+ seniors after lengthy hearing

Joe Rubino, The Denver Post on Oct 15, 2024

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The City Council on Monday rezoned a 31-acre property that was formerly home to a military supply depot in northeast Denver’s Clayton neighborhood.

The zoning changes, more than a year in the making, clear the way for an affordable housing project that will cater to LGBTQ+ seniors, property owners say.

The council’s final 9-2 vote came despite significant reservations voiced by even members who ended up supporting the changes.

Members worried that rezoning the expansive property to a set of rules that allow housing could open the door to mass redevelopment that would wipe away job-creating commercial space. The land is notably home to the York Street Yards mixed-used property that has brought manufacturing and retail jobs to former military warehouse buildings there.

“I think this just sets a bad precedent and is inconsistent with zoning procedures,” Councilwoman Shontel Lewis said before casting one of those two no votes on the rezoning.

While Lewis emphasized her support for housing focused on serving LGBTQ+ people, she could not get past the fact that the rezoning was bypassing the city’s process designed specifically for large reviewing development plans for properties more than 5 acres in size.

City planning staff testified that such a review was not deemed necessary since only 1 acre of the land is slated for new development at this point. Future plans could trigger a broader review.

But Councilman Darrell Watson, in whose northern Denver district includes the property, emphasized the importance of York Street Yards to the Clayton neighborhood and the benefits a new, more flexible zoning could bring in the future.

“It’s a community that is asking for it, that’s begging for it,” Watson said of the affordable housing.

The path to Monday’s night lengthy hearing began more than a year ago, according to Fred Glick, one of the co-owners of the property at 3897 Steele St. that is now slated for the LGBTQ+ senior housing project.

Glick described the project as a 75-unit building that while not exclusively for LGBTQ+ people, would be “LGBTQ+ affirming” and feature 5,000 square feet of space for an annex location for the Center on Coflax, one of the city’s primary service providers for that community.

Glick and his partners originally owned a grassy parcel on the western portion of the site known as the quad. They had planned to redevelop that into housing but ran into opposition from SKB, the real estate company that owns York Street Yards.

After mediation, the two sides decided to do a land swap to preserve the quad as open space while also providing room for the affordable housing project on a piece of property that today is used for vehicle storage, Glick said in an interview Monday.

The two ownership groups sought rezoning for the entire property because the old zoning fell under the city’s outmoded Chapter 59 zoning code first drafted in the 1950s. That code put constraints even on the commercial use in York Street Yards, property owners say.

SKB executive vice president John Olivier testified at Monday’s hearing that his group has no intention to redevelop any of its property as housing.

“Demolishing everything we have just worked to build — fighting our way through Chapter 59 (zoning code) — along the way, is completely incongruent with the effort we have made to improve the project,” he told the council.

More than 100 people and groups wrote letter of support for the rezoning ahead of Monday’s hearing. No community members spoke against it during the meeting.

Jes Driscoll, the vice president of the registered neighborhood association Clayton United, was among more than a dozen people who spoke in favor.

“We have seen longtime residents have to move out due to affordability,” she said of the needs in Clayton. “Affordable housing will allow people to grow old in our neighborhood.”

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