WHAT IS THE POINT OF                    
                     BLUEPRINT DENVER?
In the May 31, 2005, Rocky Mountain News, Stuart Speers wrote:

Denver is working on the biggest change to its zoning laws in half a century, and East Colfax
Avenue will be the prototype for giving major streets a new look.

The end result will probably be higher densities and more housing along key corridors like
Colfax, Broadway, and Federal Boulevard and new zoning intended to protect the character of
existing neighborhoods.

“You could call this a paradigm shift,” said Councilwoman Jeanne Robb. “If neighbors and
developers know what to expect and what our vision for the city is, we won’t have so much
neighborhood conflict.”

The rezoning effort was prompted by the city’s adoption of a new comprehensive plan, known
as “Blueprint Denver”, in 2002. It divided Denver into “areas of stability” and “areas of change”
and called for protecting existing neighborhoods while channeling new development to
places like the Central Platte Valley and areas along mass transit lines.

The hope is that high-density projects will encourage the use of mass transit.

Much of Denver’s zoning code still dates to the last major overhaul, in 1956. It allows for the
construction of high-rises in many established Central Denver neighborhoods, including
Capitol Hill, Congress Park, and West Washington Park. That reflected a belief held at the
time that much of old Denver should be torn down and replaced with skyscrapers.

“The vision for Denver was that most of the stuff from before the 50’s and 60’s needed to be
demolished and we needed to start over,” said Peter Park, manager of Denver’s Planning
department. “It destabilized neighborhoods.”

Dozens of high-rises were built next to single family homes in neighborhoods such as
Capitol Hill. Zoning disputes like the one that erupted in April in Congress Park have resulted.

The problem with the current zoning, according to Robb is that “we have zoning that
doesn’t match our neighborhoods.”
The first zoning code for Denver was written and implemented in the 1920s. Among other things, it banished backyard
chicken coops. (Rats!)

After a Depression and World War, Denver’s new post-war political leadership decided that the old zoning was
standing in the way of “progress” and by 1956 implemented an entirely new zoning code and map of the city. It was
designed to foster demolition of “antiquated” housing and commercial buildings and to bring Denver into the
“modern” world of high rise apartment buildings and skyscrapers. The results are most visible in Capitol Hill and
upper downtown.

Fifty years on from that code, our political leadership decided in 2000 or so that it was time for another re-do of the
code. This time, though, they decided to first develop a plan to guide the code writers and mappers and second to
invite citizen participation into the effort instead of just implementing it by decree. The resulting plan is called Blueprint
Denver. It was developed over a several year period and was adopted by City Council in 2002. The vote was 11 to 1.

According to then planning manager, Jennifer Moulton, the zoning language and maps to implement
the plan would be brought before City Council for their approval in 2003.

It never happened. Jennifer Moulton, who had driven the effort, died young from cancer within a year. An economic
downturn ate the city budget. Term limits forced a new mayor and 10 of 13 new Council members to be elected, all of
whom had to learn the ropes. The mayor appointed a new manager of planning from out of state who had no stake in
Moulton’s plan and who had his own notions of Denver’s “weaknesses” as a place to live and work.


Now, in 2007, the zoning code update to implement the ideas contained in Blueprint Denver
remains mostly “concept”, not enforceable city ordinance.
In its 2001 annual report,
the Denver Planning Board noted
that “Denver has also witnessed
increased alarm at loss of
neighborhood character through
extreme build-out allowed under
current zoning, loss of mature
landscaping, and other changes to
street character in neighborhoods
through the city.”

To address this, the Board
recommended a priority action to:

“Develop neighborhood
conservation mechanisms to
provide a viable alternative to
historic district designations,
including development controls
over new buildings and other
mechanisms to address
neighborhood conservation
holistically.”

Blueprint Denver echoed this (p.
17):

“Development standards….would
help to control imcompatible scale
and building form.”

“New zoning should concentrate as
much on the design of a building
as it does on regulating the
activities that occur within
buildings.”
So what exactly is the Blueprint Denver plan?

Fred Corn, a long time homeowner in West Highland and two term member
of the Denver Planning Board put it this way when questioning candidates
for mayor in the last election: “I’d like to know, first of all, if you support the
basic concept of Blueprint, which is to concentrate growth in Areas of
Change, while preserving stable neighborhoods.”

This mapping of the city into “Areas of Change” and “Areas of Stability” is the
first key idea.

The second key idea is that Areas of Change will be served by mass transit
and new developments will provide the population density to make mass
transit work.

The third key idea is that in Areas of Stability, “primarily residential
neighborhoods and their associated commercial areas, the goal is to
identify and maintain the character of an area while accommodating some
new development and redevelopment”. (Moulton) Indeed, “existing stable
neighborhoods should be reviewed for possible character-preserving
improvement and re-investment.” (Moulton)  Stability doesn’t mean
stagnation. But proposed developments must be character enhancing, not
character changing.

In West Highland, for example, the associated business district at 32nd and
Lowell is comprised of low-rise (1 and 2 story) structures, predominantly
heritage facades, brick construction, and the district is mostly pedestrian
friendly. Proposed developments in the district can be checked against
these elements of character. For example, if there were.....

•        A Traffic Department proposal to make the adjacent blocks a
“Pedestrian Priority” zone with signage and enforcement? That fits.

•        A proposal to scrape the strip mall and replace it with two story, mixed
retail and residential snugged up to the street with “fitting” façade details and
materials? That fits.

•        A proposal to demo the high rise senior apartments at Irving and re-
build low rise 3 story apartments? That fits.

•        A plan to reduce the mix of commercial enterprise in the district and
transform it into an “urban entertainment district” with metro-wide advertising
leading to heavy auto access? No, that doesn’t fit. It might increase tax
revenues, but it does nothing to maintain the character of the district.

•        A proposal to demolish a heritage single family home and replace with
a 4 story condo with an exterior design mimicking River Front? That doesn’t
fit, either; it does not enhance the existing character of the district. It’s
certainly allowed by the current ordinance, but it’s not in accordance with the
Blueprint.


This isn’t rocket science, folks. We’ve all done it whenever we’ve been
house hunting. We form notions of the character of the neighborhood in
which the prospective house sits: well-to-do or rough (socio-economics),
whether it’s contemporary or quaint (architectural coherence), how crowded
together the homes are (private open space), how clogged the street out
front is (traffic density), how tall the trees are and broad the rose bushes
(maturity of landscaping), how much sky we can see (building heights), the
presence or absence of children and old folks (age segregation), and on
and on.

One, two, or three of these elements may be the defining set of
characteristics that we can agree to call the character of a neighborhood. We
can do, we do do it, but the Denver planning department has failed to do it
and that failure, that inaction, has led to our current difficulties with intrusive
and harmful developments.


Let’s summarize: 1) increasing population density will occur only in
designated areas of change, not willy-nilly across the city; 2) those areas of
change will be tied within walking distance of a mass transit station or pick-
up point; and 3) most existing neighborhoods and their local business
districts will be helped to stabilize and maintain their existing desirable,
marketable character, and redevelopment in them will reflect that character.
Developers, of course, don’t
like to think their cost-driven
designs are intrusive.

They prefer to market “edgy”
and “eclectic”.

But “eclectic” and “edgy” are
generally not adjectives that we
would use to describe
neighborhoods in which we
would choose to raise children
and grow old…..
A final quote from Blueprint
Denver p.122:

“West Highland is a
neighborhood that
illustrates the
characteristics that draw
people to Denver.”
It is now 2007 and none of these standards are in place, yet it’s business as usual at the permit desks.

The mayor has not once said, "Now, hang on a minute; let’s fix the standards, then issue the permit…..”

That the mayor, the planning department, and our city council remain frozen while this and similar neighborhoods are
mangled beyond recognition is testament to their shortsightedness and self-centeredness….. and, it is a call to action for
those of us who have chosen these homes and these neighborhoods in which to live, to work, to raise our children, and
with luck to grow old peacefully in calming and familiar surroundings.

BPDenver today stands for Broken Promises Denver.

We gotta fix that!
That's why we need to right zone our neighborhoods!
Remember: The greenest house is the one already built!