DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

The problem is that these plans aren't going far enough and giving the richest neighbors veto rights on any sensible upzoning. These plans have started with the premise of neighborhood X needs to be able to absorb 30K number of people over the next decade. Then the neighbors chip away at it and extend the comment period by months, if not years, until the neighborhood is planned to only absorb 15K people. Then neighborhood plan Y comes along a year later and now they have to absorb 45K people, but the people there are outraged that they're being "targeted", so they chip away at the plans until they only have to absorb 15K. Neighborhood plan Z comes along, and now they have to absorb 60K people. This is the problem that we're facing right now.

PS: The state-wide Telluride decisions is way too broad in it's definition of rent control and ties the hands of cities in making policy changes that aren't actually rent control, but legally treated (and prohibited) as such. YIMBY Denver isn't necessarily pro-(actual)-rent-control.

Yes, exactly.

[Agent Orange]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

The problem is that these plans aren't going far enough and giving the richest neighbors veto rights on any sensible upzoning. These plans have started with the premise of neighborhood X needs to be able to absorb 30K number of people over the next decade. Then the neighbors chip away at it and extend the comment period by months, if not years, until the neighborhood is planned to only absorb 15K people. Then neighborhood plan Y comes along a year later and now they have to absorb 45K people, but the people there are outraged that they're being "targeted", so they chip away at the plans until they only have to absorb 15K. Neighborhood plan Z comes along, and now they have to absorb 60K people. This is the problem that we're facing right now.

PS: The state-wide Telluride decisions is way too broad in it's definition of rent control and ties the hands of cities in making policy changes that aren't actually rent control, but legally treated (and prohibited) as such. YIMBY Denver isn't necessarily pro-(actual)-rent-control.

Yes, I totally agree with your assessment of the absurd neighborhood plan process. You put plainly what I was attempting to mock. And I worry that overturning Telluride may lead non-YIMBY politicians to propose actual rent control, and that the policies you're alluding to have market distorting effects of their own which are not so unlike actual rent control. It seems to me that affordable housing mandates and density bonuses (in underzoned areas) are an attempt to "solve" the housing crisis by raising the cost of housing. That just doesn't compute economically, and I haven't been able to find an urban economist who believes this is good policy.

I get that this has shown to be be a politically palatable route in other jurisdictions, but I'm skeptical that reforms that actually add more complexity, compliance costs, and new ways of stifling supply will prove to be good compromises in the long run.

[Stonemans_rowJ]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Take a deeeeeep breath. There's things you're overlooking which is caused by tunnel vision.

As many millions of people continue to migrate from the Rustbelt and NE to the Sunbelt and SW are you certain they all need to live in a fictional 'Curtis Park' or is it possible they just want a good job and an affordable place to live?

Downtown Denver is growing rapidly, that's true and the number of jobs downtown is also growing. That said, while downtown may have the best job density it still only has about 10% of the metro area jobs. Is it possible that 90% of the population doesn't give two chits about living in Curtis Park?


I wouldn't consider 'east of Aurora' to be infill. But that has been a factor.

With the most intense development focused on the city center you're necessarily talking about a lot more expense. The way land costs have escalated in 'sprawling' RiNo demonstrates this and that development in this part of town will be much more costly than on the fringes.

The bigger problem has been that developers have been uninterested in building new affordable housing further out until now. It was like having an oligarchy in your midst as only upscale housing (for the most part) was all builders were interested in over the last ten years.



I agree with you to an extent. But the question remains what percentage of the population needs or wants to be downtown. In any case INFILL is expensive.

I'm uncertain what you specific zoning proposal for Curtis Park would be and how many units could be added as a result. But again it will not be affordable housing; it will not move the needle enough to satisfy those willing to pay up for housing. It's like chasing your tail.

You are totally overlooking all the land already available for denser development in the city center.

TakeFive, I'm surprised your past work as a RE Broker would lead you to the conclusion that if we just put a couple thousand units in Sun Valley and the industrial wasteland of Globeville that the millens will sudenly think, wait, I don't want to live anymore in a walkable, beautiful, human scaled neighborhood like Curtis Park, Berkeley, Platt Park etc. Location is everything, you know this.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I don't think this claim is that outlandish. I think back to one of Ken's classic posts from a decade ago now "CBD Sprawl" - https://denverinfill.com/blog/2010/11/cbd-sprawl.html

There is objectively a lot of space compared to most coastal cities. (I haven't read back to see the context of the comment, so I am not sure what the point being made was. If it's that we don't have to build in the established neighborhoods because there is room elsewhere, well, screw that.)

My question wasn't about available land in general (yes, there's undeveloped land in central Denver, that's obvious), but specifically developable land for housing. After all, the Buzzes and Dikeous of Denver have made swaths of developable land off limits because they're either not willing to sell or aren't willing to propose reasonable terms. Next, how much land around central Denver is underzoned or zoned commercial or industrial? How much land is subject to restrictive land use regulations? There's swaths of land within a couple of blocks of the CBD zoned for 3 or 4 stories. The Golden Triangle and E. Colfax are full of tiny plots of land that are either too narrow or shallow to develop with the prescribed parking requirements. So, how easy it is to develop enough housing, quantifiably? I'm looking for numbers not feelings. We underbuilt by about 1,500 units in 2018 and again in 2019.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

All of this is irrelevant. We're talking about supply and demand within city center neighborhoods. We're talking about how cutting off additional supply within a downtown neighborhood negativity affects the market, not just within that neighborhood but in adjacent neighborhoods.

The fact that some people might not give a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 about Curtis Park because they're fine living in Highlands Ranch or Fort Worth, TX is irrelevant. The fact that land in the urban core is more expensive is irrelevant.

Neither Curtis Park nor downtown exist in a vacuum.

The average price of a house in metro Denver is $485,000; the average price of a house in downtown is $452,000; the average price of a house in San Francisco is $1.3 million; the average price of a house in Phoenix $285,000.

There's various reasons for these differences; while they all revolve around supply and demand there's many individual components that go into these calculations. The price of land is a big one and the price of land downtown has escalated compared to the cost in east Aurora which is still much higher than land in the desert. The cost of labor is another big factor.

Curtis Park and downtown Denver aren't detached from the fact that the average cost of a house in the metro area is $485,000. It just isn't.

I stated that to move the needle you'd need to scrape Curtis park clean and allow much higher density. You won't move the needle by adding missing middle as nice as that would be.

[Cirrus]

Wow, way to completely miss the key points.

Nope, not the least surprised.

[Cirrus]

By the way, most of us here understand the points I'm making, when applied to Boulder. We've known for decades that tons of people want to live in Boulder, but can't because of NIMBY regulations, so they overflowed to Louisville, then Superior, then Erie, in a never-ending chain of NIMBYism pushing growth to the next best available spot. That's the least controversial thing to say on this forum.

Well, the exact same thing is true for the close-in neighborhoods of Denver, like Curtis Park. The same processes at work, creating similar effects.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Stonemans_rowJ

TakeFive, I'm surprised your past work as a RE Broker would lead you to the conclusion that if we just put a couple thousand units in Sun Valley and the industrial wasteland of Globeville that the millens will sudenly think, wait, I don't want to live anymore in a walkable, beautiful, human scaled neighborhood like Curtis Park, Berkeley, Platt Park etc. Location is everything, you know this.

Thanks for bringing this up; I agree 100%. Location; location; location.

If we're are talking about availability of more affordable housing then those other neighborhoods can move the needle partly because their location is not as good. Since their location is not as good, builders are more likely to build a more affordable product. Adding a variety of missing middle housing in Curtis Park et al won't or barely will move the needle. As you suggest it's all about location.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

In development news, Austin-based Cypress Real Estate is petitioning city council to rezone part of the Denargo Market area to allow for a 12-story residential development with ground floor commercial space.

https://denverite.com/2020/02/05/in-five...place-lodo-self-storage-and-a-warehouse/

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

By the way, most of us here understand the points I'm making, when applied to Boulder. We've known for decades that tons of people want to live in Boulder, but can't because of NIMBY regulations, so they overflowed to Louisville, then Superior, then Erie, in a never-ending chain of NIMBYism begetting sprawl. And all the while Boulder pats itself on the back, as if its actions weren't the cause of it all. That's the least controversial thing to say on this forum.

Well, the exact same thing is true for the close-in neighborhoods of Denver, like Curtis Park. The same processes at work, creating similar effects.

I'm sorry but close in neighborhoods do not exist in a vacuum, unless you create artificial barriers (like Boulder) or artificial regs and rules like Agent Orange references. I recognize the role of zoning.

How many times do I have to say that to move the needle you'd need to scrape Curtis Park (et al) clean for much higher density. To repeat myself (again) if you want to scrape all of Denver's history then you can remake what exists and it would definitely change a lot of things. It's up to the citizen-voters of Denver. But that's waaay different than adding some missing middle at the margin.

[CherryCreek]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Thanks for bringing this up; I agree 100%. Location; location; location.

If we're are talking about availability of more affordable housing then those other neighborhoods can move the needle partly because their location is not as good. Since their location is not as good, builders are more likely to build a more affordable product. Adding a variety of missing middle housing in Curtis Park et al won't or barely will move the needle. As you suggest it's all about location.

I got to side mostly with Take Five on this debate, as least as it pertains to Curtis Park. Of course what Cirrus says about how NIMBYism in one neighborhood spills over the nearby neighborhoods, and on through the city, is also correct. That's pretty self-evident and not very controversial.

I just think that focusing on Curtis Park as a big part of the problem when you still have TONS of develope-able land in OTHER close in to downtown areas, such as Araphahoe Square, Golden Triangle, Cap Hill, River Mile, Mile Hi, Sun Valley, Brighton Blvd, north RiNO, Ballpark, etc., makes no sense.

Without touching the historical area of Curtis Park, with other changes to zoning and height restrictions elsewhere how much density could you still add to these close-in areas? 100,000 residents?

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I just think that focusing on Curtis Park as a big part of the problem when you still have TONS of develope-able land in OTHER close in to downtown areas, such as Araphahoe Square, Golden Triangle, Cap Hill, River Mile, Mile Hi, Sun Valley, Brighton Blvd, north RiNO, Ballpark, etc., makes no sense.

Without touching the historical area of Curtis Park, with other changes to zoning and height restrictions how much density could you still add to these close in areas? 100,000 residents?

1. 100,000 is not enough. It might be enough in the next couple of decades, but what about after that? We got into this problem in the first place by establishing processes that were appropriate for one generation but prevented evolution beyond that, and which people now believe are unchangeable rules of the universe to the extent that they're virtually impossible to meaningfully change. Oops.

2. Many of the locations you cite are not remotely as good, and thus fall into the category of places growth spills to, not places growth really wants to go. Are you honestly going to argue that Sun Valley is functionally the same as Curtis Park?

3. All of that said, I will grant that you can opt to prevent change in one or two places, provided you allow the growth in other equally desirable places. If you want to lock Curtis Park in amber, OK, but LoDo, Five Points, Cap Hill, Highlands, and all the other just-as-good-walkable-to-downtown neighborhoods have to then take even more. You can't just put it all in industrial areas a little further away (other cities have tried this and it buys you at most 20 years). You can't protect them all. Ending historic preservation in LoDo to protect Curtis Park might be one example of the sort of compromise "make it work" strategy I'm saying is necessary. Is that what you want? I don't think that's the most desirable idea, but certainly it's one potential strategy.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

1. 100,000 is not enough. It might be enough in the next couple of decades, but what about after that? We got into this problem in the first place by establishing processes that were appropriate for one generation but prevented evolution beyond that, and which people now believe are unchangeable rules of the universe to the extent that they're virtually impossible to meaningfully change. Oops.

This goes to a point I didn't get to: the role of time.

If you could magically add a lot of units in a short period of time you could 'shock' the existing demand-supply curve. But that's not how development happens; it occurs over many years and decades. As you allude to, over time the difference is nil.

While you focus on making a high value area a bit less expensive, I have focused on what is even more important and that's the availability of nearby more affordable housing. You're exactly correct that some neighborhoods will always be expensive while less desirable areas can be more affordable. You even acknowledged this.

2. Many of the locations you cite are not remotely as good, and thus fall into the category of places growth spills to, not places growth really wants to go. Are you honestly going to argue that Sun Valley is functionally the same as Curtis Park?

[SirLucasTheGreat]

Arapahoe Square and Golden Triangle are each more walkable to downtown than Curtis Park and both have incredible residential supply in the pipeline. Is the issue when is the most appropriate time to upzone Curtis Park? I'm not sure that it is a top priority at this moment. Aren't there other more important issues to address, such as unreasonable parking requirements? I'm really excited to see Kenect Denver, X3, and Evolve Towers move forward. Arapahoe Square really could be another LoDo but with greater density

[Cirrus]

Over time the difference is not nil. That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that over time the regulatory system needs to enable evolution that it does not enable today.

The entire reason we are talking about a supply/demand "shock" right now (which I agree is not really possible) is that our system prevented evolution rather than enabling it, and that resulted in a problem building up and building up and getting worse over time, until it became so gigantic that it's now undeniable. It will continue to get worse until we modify our system to enable the kind of evolution that's necessary. That won't make everything OK the next day. But you still do it.

If you have a bathtub full of water, and it's flooding your bathroom floor, do you leave the plug in and let the flood keep getting worse just because all the water won't disappear in the first 5 seconds? No, you pull out the plug and let it drain. Obviously.

The same is true for housing. It is only not obvious because of the time scale involved.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Wow, way to completely miss the key points.

Nope, not the least surprised.

TakeFive - Denvere's Eeyore.

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I just think that focusing on Curtis Park as a big part of the problem when you still have TONS of develope-able land in OTHER close in to downtown areas, such as Araphahoe Square, Golden Triangle, Cap Hill, River Mile, Mile Hi, Sun Valley, Brighton Blvd, north RiNO, Ballpark, etc., makes no sense.

And I would challenge you to think in terms of why is Curtis Park such as special snowflake that it shouldn't be subject to the same development patterns as the rest of the neighborhoods that you listed. This is, believe it or not classic NIMBYism. It's no different than when that guy told me that Millenials that want to live in Denver should move to Highlands Ranch to solve our housing issues.

Arapahoe Square - it's growing, but the projects are large and take no less than 3 years to plan and complete. Allowing gentle density increase in Curtis Park would allow for smaller (but more) housing to come online quicker.

GT - lot assemblage is a big issue, so you only have a handful of lots that will pencil out. Also, there are are height restrictions and new GT guidelines coming down the pike.

Cap Hill - not many lots for sale and it's actually zone lower than what's already built.

River Mile - it's several years out until dirt is moved. Decades for full build-out. Master planned, so you'll have an incomplete neighborhood until full build-out.

Mile Hi & Sun Valley - at least 2 years out from breaking ground on anything. Master planned, so you'll have an incomplete neighborhood until full build-out.

Brighton Blvd. & NoRiNo - there hasn't been a single for-sale housing development yet, but at least it's moving along.

BallPark - there are a ton of parking lots, but not a lot of movement on the housing front lately.

Curtis Park - why not? Why can't we allow the building of 3-5 story apartments, condos, townhomes across the neighborhood? It doesn't mean that it'll happen on every block. In fact, more more areas that we allow development, the more spread out the impact will be.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Over time the difference is not nil. That is the exact opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying that over time the regulatory system needs to enable evolution that it does not enable today.

The entire reason we are talking about a supply/demand "shock" right now (which I agree is not really possible) is that our system prevented evolution rather than enabling it, and that resulted in a problem building up and building up and getting worse over time, until it became so gigantic that it's now undeniable. It will continue to get worse until we modify our system to enable the kind of evolution that's necessary. That won't make everything OK the next day. But you still do it.

If you have a bathtub full of water, and it's flooding your bathroom floor, do you leave the plug in and let the flood keep getting worse just because all the water won't disappear in the first 5 seconds? No, you pull out the plug and let it drain. Obviously.

The same is true for housing. It is only not obvious because of the time scale involved.

Final comment; then we can get back to more interesting things.

To solve your bathtub problem it's best just to shower.

I don't entirely disagree with you; I understand the simple logic of it.

I've alluded to two extremes; there's any number of half-way measures. But Stonemans_rowJ points to the elephant in the room. Location, location, location.

Originally Posted by The Dirt

TakeFive - Denvere's Eeyore.

Well I am a fan of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. I understand we may see things differently and that's what makes for a good horse race.

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Curtis Park - why not? Why can't we allow the building of 3-5 story apartments, condos, townhomes across the neighborhood? It doesn't mean that it'll happen on every block. In fact, more more areas that we allow development, the more spread out the impact will be.

I recall saying exactly this during our previous debate. I mentioned that there is already a bit of a mish-mash in Curtis Park. That said I also recognized that there existed zoning as Curtis Park has already explained.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

How many times do I have to say that to move the needle you'd need to scrape Curtis Park (et al) clean for much higher density. To repeat myself (again) if you want to scrape all of Denver's history then you can remake what exists and it would definitely change a lot of things. It's up to the citizen-voters of Denver. But that's waaay different than adding some missing middle at the margin.

Upzoning and allowing more density and "scraping all of Denver's history" are completely different things. You don't need to dip a whole neighborhood in amber to preserve history. You can save contributing structures up to whole blocks if you want to. Upzoning relieves the pressure valve across the entire city by allowing project opportunities in more places, building the necessary capacity quicker. If 100 people want to live in Curtis Park, you could scrape 50 houses and build new houses to accommodate them all, or you could scrape a quarter block and built a 4 story condo building to accommodate all of them.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Upzoning and allowing more density and "scraping all of Denver's history" are completely different things. You don't need to dip a whole neighborhood in amber to preserve history. You can save contributing structures up to whole blocks if you want to. Upzoning relieves the pressure valve across the entire city by allowing project opportunities in more places, building the necessary capacity quicker. If 100 people want to live in Curtis Park, you could scrape 50 houses and build new houses to accommodate them all, or you could scrape a quarter block and built a 4 story condo building to accommodate all of them.

I don't disagree.

How much difference it would make over time is speculative.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

In development news, Austin-based Cypress Real Estate is petitioning city council to rezone part of the Denargo Market area to allow for a 12-story residential development with ground floor commercial space.

https://denverite.com/2020/02/05/in-five...place-lodo-self-storage-and-a-warehouse/

Cypress was one of the earliest of birds as they worked hard to assemble a smorgasbord of sites that make the the original Denargo Market back prior to the recession. After (waiting to) building the first apartment they decided to sell off other sites to other developers. Now they're back to buying land again for development. Seems like they have an identity crisis?

In any case, unless I'm mistaken, this site is nearby to the land that Golub (partner on WTC) from Chicago bought recently.