DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

You’d prefer folks move to the burbs? I would like a 4br/3ba home, someplace south of downtown, as central as I can afford it. Run that search on realtor, and there are no options that make more economic sense than tearing down the current piece of junk 2br/1ba house and building here. It’s cheaper, and I get what I want. 1,300 sf floor plate, 2 story house, that’s the math - around $1 million. That’s not a McMansion, that’s just a house. A house for an adult (which I recognize most folks on here are not).

Don’t forget the garage for your truck. Probably getting a nice 2-car garage with storage for that entry level price. DU area, right?


Congrats on the house BTW!

[SnyderBock]

Whoa,
Why the personal attack bunt_q?
I very clearly said I was talking about people who want to preserve the character of their neighborhood by keeping that mid-density affordable housing out. They don't have a problem with the architecture, they have a problem with their neighborhood being infiltrated by people not like them, of a lower economic class. Or in the case of traditionally minority neighborhoods, they don't want people of a wealthier economic class moving in and taking over their neighborhood.

This is what the root cause of NIMBYizm in Denver and probably a good part of the country is. We have some very deep divides and prejudices to overcome and we can't begin that process if someone is shunned for bringing the topic up.
And I do live in Denver, btw. I am in-tune with the local opinion. One thing I have noticed in Denver, instead of out of the closet racism, there is a lot more economical class prejudice here, than in the south.

My wife and I are trying to transition from renters to buyers. As late 30's, first time home buyers, we are struggling to find much available in the 200-300k price range. We are definitely not adult enough for a million home yet. Maybe after another decade of working 60 hours a week in a physically and mentally challenging, face pace, high stress leadership role and I will be adult enough for one of those million dollar homes. Only problem is they will probably be 2 million homes by then.

Anyway bunt_q, I wasn't saying all people or you specifically. I'm talking about a broader cause behind this nationalist movement pushing for xenophobia, NIMBYism, anti-growth, and division. This is the big picture.

[bulldurhamer]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

Beautifully stated.

it's not that beautiful since there's a massive failure to point out that we already have several of these so called complete neighborhoods, all built before 1910 as you said it.

try again ken.



it's also a terrible take that you get to walk everywhere. once again look at new york or any real major city. you will never get to walk everywhere. you'll probably barely walk anywhere except to and from the train. you'll sit on that train for hours and hours and hours.


it's worth pointing out again and again and again just how absurd ken's dream to destroy our city is. destroy the city for the sake of jamming people in so agent orange can walk (although he already lives in rino so i'm curious if we really have the crisis they claim).


minneapolis never had the historic housing stock denver did. that's a major difference. denver also probably has smaller tighter lots. denver certainly has a streetcar history that has left neighborhoods that are exactly what are described as the ideal as well. but ken thinks he should get to walk everywhere becasue that's never really a feasible solution anywhere ever unless you want to tear down a great part of what makes the city appealing.


since it's so beautiful to ken to fuck everything up, why are we wasting all that acreage on city park? imagine how much much density we could jam in there if we took away the zoo. why should an elephant get so much prime space all to himself? talk about a waste of density.

[Sam Hill]

You're astonishingly ignorant about NYC, Minneapolis, and Denver.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

I feel that there has been a lot of gratuitously combative language in this forum as of late. I joined initially with the hopes that this would be a good venue for staying informed about developmental activity in the city and maybe having thoughtful and civil discussions about broader development-related issues. What is the purpose behind anyone using inflamed or threatening language here? If it was productive, then great. In reality, it is simply toxic and accomplishes nothing other than satisfying those with poor anger management skills making the remarks themselves.

[Sam Hill]

If I regularly posted combative comments on some NIMBY forum (frequently hurling around expletives and insults along the way) I'd eventually start to feel like a troll.

[Mountain man]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

I feel that there has been a lot of gratuitously combative language in this forum as of late. I joined initially with the hopes that this would be a good venue for staying informed about developmental activity in the city and maybe having thoughtful and civil discussions about broader development-related issues. What is the purpose behind anyone using inflamed or threatening language here? If it was productive, then great. In reality, it is simply toxic and accomplishes nothing other than satisfying those with poor anger management skills making the remarks themselves.

Once bullderhammer started commeting on here the whole page started nose diving. Even turning takefive against everyone to take the side of an argumentative jerk.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

it's not that beautiful since there's a massive failure to point out that we already have several of these so called complete neighborhoods, all built before 1910 as you said it.

try again ken.



it's also a terrible take that you get to walk everywhere. once again look at new york or any real major city. you will never get to walk everywhere. you'll probably barely walk anywhere except to and from the train. you'll sit on that train for hours and hours and hours.


it's worth pointing out again and again and again just how absurd ken's dream to destroy our city is. destroy the city for the sake of jamming people in so agent orange can walk (although he already lives in rino so i'm curious if we really have the crisis they claim).


minneapolis never had the historic housing stock denver did. that's a major difference. denver also probably has smaller tighter lots. denver certainly has a streetcar history that has left neighborhoods that are exactly what are described as the ideal as well. but ken thinks he should get to walk everywhere becasue that's never really a feasible solution anywhere ever unless you want to tear down a great part of what makes the city appealing.


since it's so beautiful to ken to fuck everything up, why are we wasting all that acreage on city park? imagine how much much density we could jam in there if we took away the zoo. why should an elephant get so much prime space all to himself? talk about a waste of density.

For the love of god, please get off this forum....... You obviously won't convince anyone here to agree with your absurd statements, and most of us are sick of your incessant trolling. If you hate what's happening to Denver, and the growth that is occurring, go to another forum where people agree with you. I don't know Ken personally, but from what I can tell, he is a pretty damn smart person when it comes to the topic of urban planning design. Also, he contributes a ton to keeping the pubic informed on what's being built in this city. If you want to have a productive discussion about how to guide growth in a way that keeps up with the demand that comes with people moving here, I am totally open to that. But.... it's clear you just want to tear this thread up with your personal attacks.

[mr1138]

For real. This started literally MONTHS ago, and this forum has only gotten dragged further into the gutter with every post he makes. He has also been given multiple warnings, without any follow-up action. I thought this forum was moderated?

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

You're astonishingly ignorant about NYC, Minneapolis...

As am I... and you didn't help enlighten me.

Streetsblog recently reviewed Minneapolis's zoning change. Couple of questions came to mind. One was to any differences in typical lot sizes between Minneapolis and Denver. For example, in West Highlands where you might find larger corner lots with biggie homes, most of the homes are quite close together.

The other question I could look up.
Minneapolis population is 425,000; the metro area has a population of 3.4 million meaning Minneapolis is only one-eighth of the metro population. Denver with 700,000 is about 25% of the metro population. So at 25% Denver has twice the relative size/impact of Minneapolis at 12.5%.

Originally Posted by Mountain man

Once bullderhammer started commeting on here the whole page started nose diving. Even turning takefive against everyone to take the side of an argumentative jerk.

Eh, I have thick skin. To the extent he mentioned things I could agree with I was happy to do so. That doesn't necessarily mean we'd end up in same place though. His style is admittedly not friendly.

Originally Posted by twister244

I don't know Ken personally, but from what I can tell, he is a pretty damn smart person when it comes to the topic of urban planning design.

Ken's a professor so hopefully he knows a thing or two. Yes, urban design ie urbanism is something he knows well and supports enthusiastically. I might know the metro area better but when it comes to the city, I know about the history; Ken knows the history.

Most arguments regardless of topic tend towards being black and white, right and wrong. I'm the proverbial odd ball that loves 50 shades of grey. I love to mix and match cuz variety is the spice of life.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

You’d prefer folks move to the burbs? I would like a 4br/3ba home, someplace south of downtown, as central as I can afford it. Run that search on realtor, and there are no options that make more economic sense than tearing down the current piece of junk 2br/1ba house and building here. It’s cheaper, and I get what I want. 1,300 sf floor plate, 2 story house, that’s the math - around $1 million. That’s not a McMansion, that’s just a house. A house for an adult (which I recognize most folks on here are not).

Do you have an ETA so I can set my itinerary?

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

As am I... and you didn't help enlighten me.

I thought his comments about Minneapolis ("never had the historic housing stock denver did"), and NYC ("you'll probably barely walk anywhere except to and from the train"), were absurd. I didn't even know where to start.

I haven't exactly been the best behaved member here, so I'm not going to cast the ultimate stone and suggest he be banned, but here's my take on the situation:

One could regularly barge into some forum for vegans and post nothing but angry, combative messages about how they should all be eating meat, without technically breaking any rules (written or unwritten). Perhaps at first it's a sincere yet futile attempt to get a community of people who will never agree, to agree. But at a certain point it's just trolling.

I wish our little forum disruptor would realize that's what he's doing here and move on. This is not an outlet for his tantrums.

[ams5280]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

1,300 sf floor plate, 2 story house, that’s the math - around $1 million. That’s not a McMansion, that’s just a house. A house for an adult (which I recognize most folks on here are not).

This is something that has always made me wonder. Houses keep getting larger as families get smaller. The average single-family home in 1950 was under 1000 sq ft. My mom grew up--family of 5--in Hilltop in a typical 1950's ranch. Now there's 6000 sq ft home for $3.5 million across the street. Us 'not adults' just want the same kind of homes our parents had, not large homes well above the price range of any young family (Avg home price in 1960 is equivalent to $98k in today's dollars).

It's no wonder the average age of first-time home-buyers continues to trend upward, the target keeps moving.

Originally Posted by bunt_q

[Not many 4-5 person families living in condos in the U.S., we just don’t build them that way here. Not that I’d be opposed if that was the form our cities took. When we build multifamily, we do it in hipster bro ghettos surrounded by bars, not in neighborhoods with dry cleaners.]

But where do tech bros get their shirts cleaned? I am so confused.

As for my comment, if we are going to tear down an affordable if dated home to start fresh, I would much rather have 5 semi-attainable rowhomes packed in
with no off-street parking than one 'adult' sfh.

Cities literally cannot take any other form because that would alter 'neighborhood character'. That's probably why all new multi-family gets built in the same areas.

[TakeFive]

Not behind the paywall

Denver growth remains among nation's highest
May 27, 2019 By Puget Sound Business Journal Staff, Denver Business Journal Staff

There's a fun, easy-to-click through list of the Top 15 fastest growing cities. Props to Columbus OH for being the only rust belt city to make the list. It's otherwise south and west. Guess who is #1?

While all 15 cities may be experiencing downtown/urban growth I'd guess 5 of the 15 are experiencing significant urban growth.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by ams5280

(Avg home price in 1960 is equivalent to $98k in today's dollars).

What's your source on this? I like this Case/Schiller chart in both nominal and inflation adjusted $'s.

In any case since we have to live in the real world then real $'s are what's relevant. Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States according to FRED starts at $17,800 in 1963 and in Q1 of 2019 it's now $307,700 which is over 17X more expensive.

You preferences are noted.

Interestingly Barack Obama now lives in a Big House; so in your view he would now be unwelcome in Denver? Also interesting is I never once heard Obama being for 'class warfare' but I did love his campaign theme song: Only in America.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by ams5280

But where do tech bros get their shirts cleaned? I am so confused.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

What's your source on this? I like this Case/Schiller chart in both nominal and inflation adjusted $'s.

In any case since we have to live in the real world then real $'s are what's relevant. Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States according to FRED starts at $17,800 in 1963 and in Q1 of 2019 it's now $307,700 which is over 17X more expensive.

You preferences are noted.

Interesting chart. By coincidence, I did some compares this weekend with properties I or a friend of mine bought in Denver since 1989 and the consumer price index (using this calculator https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/). This gives you some idea how Denver went from "very affordable" to not so affordable. Here's some of those:

1. West Wash. Park Bungalow - 1989 - $90,000

2019 CPI Adjusted Price: $185,478.39
Estimated Actual Value of same property (2019): $700,000

2. Pearl Street Condo 8th and Pearl - 1993 - $78,000
2019 CPI Adjusted Price: $160,747.94
Estimated Actual Value of Same Property (2019): $400,000

3. Congress Park Bungalow (1996) - $195,000
2019 CPI Adjusted Price: $401,869.84
Estimated Actual Value of Same Property (2019): $750,000


Be interesting to do these numbers as a ratio of median income, but clearly prior to the current boom Denver was much more affordable! A young professional starting out in 1990 had tons of affordable choices. And those were in neighborhoods that even then were very desirable. Uptown was significantly cheaper, (high crime, neighborhood in decline) and LoHi was amazingly cheaper (houses below $50K, if memory serves). I remember the initial marketing around Highlands as it started to gentrify, with realtors claiming it was the "next" Wash Park. I was like: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA. Right! Oops. I should have listened.

For Aurora condos, it was like happy hour - buy one, get one free. I came real close to pulling the trigger on one for around $30K, but passed. doh!

If i only knew then what I know now, I wouldn't be working .

[Stonemans_rowJ]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

There's no real argument against that. Though I would caution against looking at every industrial district and proposing that it be redeveloped as RiNo has. You end up losing the older industrial options that provide space for startups that don't involve two bros, a couple MacBooks, and a coffee shop. Plus you encourage further congestion due to all of those delivery trucks being pushed out further and having to drive that much more to get back in. Denver shouldn't just be composed of a downtown, single family streetcar neighborhoods, and douche-centric areas like RiNo.

But should every single streetcar neighborhood, hell every neighborhood composed primarily of single family homes, be statically preserved as it is without an attempt to introduce some density into them? Congress Park is certainly beautiful and desirable, but I don't think that it has achieved it's full potential and won't as long as it remains so constricted by the zoning that we have in place city-wide. Nor is this static nature necessarily good for the city as whole as it causes artificial scarcity of housing stock and also breeds resentment towards development as the only replacement of an existing house is an even larger house that is well out of the character of the neighborhood. Let's open up our zoning a bit and allow duplexes and four-plexes back into these neighborhoods so that instead of just having $800K bungalows, $900K Denver squares, and $1.3M McMansions we can also get $300K condos and other sub $500K options. Include design review and lot limitations if that's what it takes to increase the zoning while preserving neighborhood character.

I am in agreement here on all your post. I do feel Congress Park is one of the most complete neighborhoods in the city. Between Colfax and 17th is U-TU-B and there is a handful of duplexes recently built and under construction.
There are newly built slot homes and townhomes in the 13th/14th area. I have lived there myself previously and there is a great diversity and mix of people of all ages, ethnicities, and walks of life. Homes from $200,000 to $2M. Lots of rental options, new and affordable pre-war and mid century apt buildings.
Bike lanes, within easy walk to numerous bus lines, great city park close (Cheesman). Most neighborhoods need upzoning like mine (Mayfair) but I believe Congress Park is a good example of what we can achieve elsewhere.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by Stonemans_rowJ

I am in agreement here on all your post. I do feel Congress Park is one of the most complete neighborhoods in the city. Between Colfax and 17th is U-TU-B and there is a handful of duplexes recently built and under construction.
There are newly built slot homes and townhomes in the 13th/14th area. I have lived there myself previously and there is a great diversity and mix of people of all ages, ethnicities, and walks of life. Homes from $200,000 to $2M. Lots of rental options, new and affordable pre-war and mid century apt buildings.
Bike lanes, within easy walk to numerous bus lines, great city park close (Cheesman). Most neighborhoods need upzoning like mine (Mayfair) but I believe Congress Park is a good example of what we can achieve elsewhere.

You are right about Congress Park and that neighborhood (together with Capitol Hill) after WWII really helped provide the "missing middle" for that generation. Congress Park is still "mostly" SFH but as you point out it does have diversity (and flexibility) that many on here are advocating for. Did mixing duplexes, triplexes, townhomes, and small apartment buildings "ruin" the character of Congress Park? Hell no!

Another example is of course Cherry Creek which also has all of those things, and is considered by some to be a desirable neighborhood.

I think people often resist any and all change, allowing their imaginations to run wild about the horrible things that could happen if the change is approved. Like the Hilltop residents who managed to stop this development:




So that they could preserve this:



Apparently, they didn't want anything altering their "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle.

https://denverite.com/2019/01/06/hilltop-zoning-city-council/

[ams5280]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Apparently, they didn't want anything altering their "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle.

My mom and I were just lamenting about how much her Hilltop neighborhood has changed when I showed the picture of the $3.5 million dollar mansion across the street from where the house she grew up in used to be.

This particular Holly Street project is what got me incensed about housing policy in Denver, particularly given that Amanda Sawyer, a San Francisco transplant who vehemently opposed this particular project and cites it as her primary reason for joining the City Council race, has a fair shot of winning District 5. I'm sorry, but I already witnessed in Boulder and am now witnessing in my current community how out-of-state transplant homeowners who bought a home here joined local politics and are unwilling to listen to--if not downright combative against--renters.

Again I ask, what is neighborhood character? Certainly a move from starter homes to literal mansions (the Samsonite family moved down the block) isn't protecting the character of the neighborhood.