DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

Really? My bet is that population growth will occur faster and bigger than whatever you think you accomplish over time.

TakeFive, you are spot on with this statement BUT population growth doesn't HAVE to swamp our housing stok. We can produce more but artificial limitations are holding us back. Those limitations come in all different shapes sizes across multiple spectrum.

Your comments about this won't help or that will hardly put a dent...well, nothing is meant to be a silver bullet but when all of these small measures are taken together, it makes a big dent. I, for one, would rather accommodate an additional 1,000 people or 10,000 or 100,000 people every year than not. If it pisses off old, reech white folk, I'm out with that because they have theirs and it's high time the rest of the populace have equal opportunities.

[Agent Orange]

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

This is not thrown around here often and perhaps for good reason but what about the prospect of significantly increasing public housing? In Hong Kong, which was and still largely is more capitalistic than the United States, about half the residents live in some variety of public housing. This would be as an adjunct to reducing parking minimums and upzoning, rather than as an alternative.

Hong Kong and Singapore are so different from us I'm not sure it's worth comparing. But let's not forget that HK is the most expensive city in the world, with an income:housing cost ratio of 20, versus Denver's ratio of 5 or 6. And tons of their residents live in literal cages as that's the only thing many working class can afford. I'm not sure where the chicken and egg is there, but if we're going to look at other models let's be sure not to overlook their flaws.

Still, I think social housing could be part of the solution in expensive American cities. At least for an interim period while zoning type reforms lead to market rate supply "catching up" to demand. The Netherlands might be worth exploring as their social housing is built and run by non-profits and is more integrated with market rate housing. That might be more politically feasible in the US and the NL's results look a lot more appealing that America's mid-20th century experiment with public housing.

Originally Posted by twister244

It's a mid-sized 3rd tier American city that is nestled against the mountains for those that can afford it. I've noticed (from a younger single perspective) that Denver is fairly transient for people in my group, and this is one of the reasons.

I feel this way too as a single youngish person, and have had to say goodbye to a lot of people who've moved away when they begin having a family. As someone who can just barely afford Denver comfortably, I still face the problem of not being able to afford the "world class" cities, as Dirt put it. I don't like the culture and the climate of the Sun Belt. That leaves cheap, underpopulated Rust Belt cities. While they have great housing stock, I'm not too excited about them either for climate and job prospect reasons. So I'm sticking around for now. If I knew I could build a career working exclusively remote long term, I'd be looking at Spokane.

[SirLucasTheGreat]

That's fascinating. I'll have to check out social housing in the Netherlands

[TakeFive]

I'm going to be disagreeable b/c I can

Originally Posted by SirLucasTheGreat

This is not thrown around here often and perhaps for good reason but what about the prospect of significantly increasing public housing? In Hong Kong, which was and still largely is more capitalistic than the United States, about half the residents live in some variety of public housing.

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

Singapore also does this. And the public housing is nice. Singapore is one of the most expensive cities/nations to live in in the world, so the solution makes sense.

Oops... Agent Orange beat me to the punch and said it better than I can.

Originally Posted by Agent Orange

Hong Kong and Singapore are so different from us I'm not sure it's worth comparing. But let's not forget that HK is the most expensive city in the world, with an income:housing cost ratio of 20, versus Denver's ratio of 5 or 6. And tons of their residents live in literal cages as that's the only thing many working class can afford. I'm not sure where the chicken and egg is there, but if we're going to look at other models let's be sure not to overlook their flaws.

There's a Big difference in Ethos
Asians have a very different culture; they are much more regimented and disciplined as a society - for the most part.

Originally Posted by DenvertoLA

Especially since those nations don't really have the option of sprawl....

Yup, this is a Biggie. The mentioned cities are landlocked and have very little land.

This country has a very checkered past with public housing
We can skip the politics and just say we have learned a lot from experience.

I Love "dedicated" Affordable Housing
We recently had a couple of pages here around new 'affordable' projects. Personally, I think Denver/metro is doing a very nice job in confronting this need in a most sensible way. One recent project targeted Vets. Another recent project targeted those with specific disabilities.

Note: I do understand the difference between 'designated' affordable housing and more affordable housing in general which is different.

Let the Private Sector do the job and bear the burden and risks
All these new projects with micro-units and 'rent by the bed' (etc) like X Denver are creating a lower end option that "over time" should fill in the need for affordability.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Piece meal redeveloping parking lots and rezonings aren't going to make a dent for affordability. It's going to take large scale change to make it happen.

I think that you VASTLY underestimate the sheer volume of parking lots and otherwise empty lots throughout the inner core, still. Preserving neighborhoods shifts the focus and concentrates development back to where it makes sense.

Rezoning 3/4 of the city, as scary as it's going to sound to people like you, won't result in wholesale redevelopment. It'll simply allow developers to target the best opportunities for redevelopment - the cheapest, ugliest, least maintained building on the block. Not every damn building.

This might be a shock to you, but you can already totally redevelop those properties. That's widely understood.

Old white people being scared that their privilege is being eroded away isn't a good argument. They should be scared.

This is not really relevant to the question of whether neighborhood-scale should still exist in Denver, but we don't necessarily disagree here.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by ams5280

Lets face it, most of the so-called preservationists don’t give a rats ass about history, they don’t like change and are enjoying their increasing home values while wanting to stop anything else from being built that might alter the sweet setup.

If you actually care about /all/ these ‘historic’ catalog homes, let’s just landmark every SFH built before 1971. No exterior updates that don’t match the period of construction, some added commissions and DRBs to make sure your front yard retains that “classic character”, period specific landscaping only.

Because right now, those homes are still facing the wrecking ball only to be replaced by bigger, more-outrageously priced SFH (and duplexes in the few places permitted). Only rezoning small areas at a time almost guarantees a greater change concentrated in those areas.

To the NIMBYs point, the land is too expensive, so the missing middle is still probably not dense enough. There’s a great fourplex in Cherry Creek if you have $1.4 million.

I still have to point out the hypocrisy in a city that tore down Tabor Opera House and all of Curtis St laying down in front of the bulldozers for a Sears & Roebuck bungalow on every block. There are more important preservation targets.

I care about historic preservation, and also appreciate classic architectural styles, but you can’t deny that modern homes are just the next iteration of the Denver Square, albeit more expensive. Neighborhood design standards would be great, but add cost to construction - and committee review is often fickle. Find a middle ground to create the desired form.

But don’t enshrine 3/4 the city in amber over an empty argument of historic value. Cities change, as well they should. Cap Hill was once all mansions for the rich, as was West Colfax. Our city /has changed/ but now we want to set an arbitrary date for when everything was perfect? Give me a break.

I agree with all of this.

I think what's concerning is the YIMBY types who have developed a (variation of libertarian) ideology around "Build here, build now, build everywhere!" kind of like Sean Hannity talking about oil drilling.

Most people really want some kind of middle ground. We want both historic preservation (and by extension preservation of historic neighborhoods) as well as more diverse/inclusive neighborhoods and obviously need room to grow. Sacrificing one of those for the other is a false choice being demanded by people who have turned this into a question of ideological purity/extremism.

I originally loved what the YIMBY folks were about, especially their slogan on Facebook "Denver is not full," which is one of the truest things ever said. I officially checked out when historic preservation became evil and racist and other craziness. The Carmen Court debate was a great example. Take a step back and look at who you're shilling for - Hines Development and their quest to demolish missing middle bc it's in a better location than all of the readily available development sites.

Urban economics has this tendency to redevelop the same parcel every 20 years, because that's what the market really wants above all else, while leaving everything a mile away less dense. Planning has the opportunity to "provide clarity" and focus development forces where it actually improves the whole of the city, instead of redeveloping the same parcel every 20 years. When you provide a framework with guardrails for the private market, you start moving the ball forward instead of one step forward and one step backward all the time.

[TakeFive]

What If...

Our tech changing world has made all of us (young or old) have short attention spans and demanding of instant gratification. Technically, one could order a whole new wardrobe on the way to work and it could be delivered before we get home.

Most of you who are younger also have a very different accumulation of memories and experiences than I have. Doesn't mean anything about "being right" but your attitudes are based more on a short span of experience - other than what has been 'passed down' or you've read about - which never is as impactful as your own personal experiences.

But What If...

Denver, starting ~ 2024 experienced a whole new wave of "white flight" or some equivalent? Making predictions is generally a Fool's Errand but sometimes History does seem to repeat itself.

What would be the next catalyst for such an event? Perhaps a growing impatience for putting up with the growing homeless population downtown as well as a significant growth in crime - even the more ubiquitous petty theft of personal property; car jacking is something I never want to experience.

It's a Matter of Degree

Downtown Denver and it's surrounding neighborhoods didn't disintegrate in the 1970's. I enjoyed it during the 1980's. But there's no question 'white flight' impacted both downtown and the suburbs as well as perceived desirability and real estate values.

It is entirely possible that current over-powering demand for urban real estate could ebb and values drop - compared to many suburban hot spots.

It's also a FACT that 'The Poors' are much less concerned about WHERE they live than finding a place where they can affordably live and raise a family.

Priceless

Originally Posted by gopokes21

I think what's concerning is the YIMBY types who have developed a (variation of libertarian) ideology around "Build here, build now, build everywhere!" kind of like Sean Hannity talking about oil drilling.

Nice post in general. Well done.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

What If...

Our tech changing world has made all of us (young or old) have short attention spans and demanding of instant gratification. Technically, one could order a whole new wardrobe on the way to work and it could be delivered before we get home.

Most of you who are younger also have a very different accumulation of memories and experiences than I have. Doesn't mean anything about "being right" but your attitudes are based more on a short span of experience - other than what has been 'passed down' or you've read about - which never is as impactful as your own personal experiences.

But What If...

Denver, starting ~ 2024 experienced a whole new wave of "white flight" or some equivalent? Making predictions is generally a Fool's Errand but sometimes History does seem to repeat itself.

What would be the next catalyst for such an event? Perhaps a growing impatience for putting up with the growing homeless population downtown as well as a significant growth in crime - even the more ubiquitous petty theft of personal property; car jacking is something I never want to experience.

It's a Matter of Degree

Downtown Denver and it's surrounding neighborhoods didn't disintegrate in the 1970's. I enjoyed it during the 1980's. But there's no question 'white flight' impacted both downtown and the suburbs as well as perceived desirability and real estate values.

It is entirely possible that current over-powering demand for urban real estate could ebb and values drop - compared to many suburban hot spots.

It's also a FACT that 'The Poors' are much less concerned about WHERE they live than finding a place where they can affordably live and raise a family.

The answer is no. People want to live in Denver proper. There's a lot of reasons for this - good schools (citywide school choice), commitment to parks, transit-rich areas, cultural amenities, organic culture, music scene, diversity, proximity to downtown, neighborhood-scale economic opportunities in every neighborhood, social interaction, etc etc. If DPS ever ends citywide school choice, then yes we very well could see decline again.

Also most of the Front Range's awful traffic is actually in the suburbs. Traffic is pretty free-flowing through most of Denver thanks to one-ways and the urban grid. The only things the suburbs can match is access to mountains and restaurants (albeit mostly chain). Jeffco and Littleton schools are good, but everyone else is beneath DPS, whose really done a phenomenal job for an urban school district.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

"Fuck NIMBYs. They just want to dip Denver in amber and make it a rich person's playground. I don't like the attitude of I've got mine, fuck everyone else." - bunt, circa 2010

"Now that I've got my exclusive zip code, central Denver historic home, fuck everyone else." - bunt, circa 2021

My views haven't changed. When you guys stopped believing in middle ground, compromise, policy over ideology, and turned every issue, even unrelated ones, into a goddamn race war, that is what has changed. I still want to build big, build fast, and build tall. I don't think you need to declare war on white privilege to do it. Those are separate issues. Just because somebody wrote a book once on the history of redlining doesn't mean everything is about that.

Originally Posted by The Dirt

The problem is, small incremental change won't make a shit stain of a change. Piece meal redeveloping parking lots and rezonings aren't going to make a dent for affordability. their privilege is being eroded away isn't a good argument.

Agree to disagree on this one. 9th and Colorado ended up with 1,100 units. If that had been 3,100 units it would be a better project, and you could have preserved 2,000 Congress Park bungalows. And the practicalities of real estate development are such that you could upzone all of Congress Park and not see 2,000 new units for decades. But you would probably see 200. And piss off a whole lot of people in the process. Who then, guess what, fight you the next time you want to rezone for 3,000 instead of 1,000.

If you guys actually focused on the substance of the issues, you would see that you are focused on the wrong things if you want to effect change. But you either lack the subject matter expertise, or you prefer the ideological "pure" battles; I am not sure which it is. But that is what I see as having changed.

Originally Posted by Agent Orange

I agree with many of your critiques, especially the quixotic, polarizing anti-racist wing of the YIMBY cohort. But really what are the "bigger opportunities" passing us by compared to broad reforms like zoning liberalization and ending parking minimums? You think YIMBYites should spend all their energy on upzoning one or two high profile lots at a time? From a Strong Townsian standpoint, I think the mass upzoning approach (eg Sacramento) will bear much more fruit in the long term and will benefit local homeowners/small developers rather than a Toronto landscape of SFH neighborhoods punctured by occasional towers on old church grounds.

I actually disagree that the mass upzoning produces better results, or more housing over the long term, because it can't deliver at scale. The notion that we are going to organically redevelop our neighborhoods with gentle density one lot at a time over the years is a little bit naïve and out of touch with how the vast majority of development, even infill development, occurs today. Just look at how damned expensive it is to build a single ADU...

(Strong Towns is equally ideological, and not actually smart on development, though I like a lot of what they do and advocate for in theory. And as for parking minimums, they are rarely relevant here on projects of any significance - parking is being provided for other reasons, not because it is mandated. On the other hand, if we are talking about parking minimum preventing small scale neighborhood infill... that's theoretically a problem, yes, but rarely the real issue; small scale development is just really tough to make pencil and there's not a lot we can do to change those underlying economics in a way that is going to amount to much more than a trickle.)

In the meantime, the high-profile fights - a parking lot here, a parking lot there - actually set the tone and the precedent for how zoning fights take place in our City. How CPD approaches them, how Council approaches them, how RNOs approach them, and most importantly, how developers approach them. I have no way to quantify this, but I assure you the legacy of that god forsaken No High Rises in West Highlands fight, in terms of political shifts, and most damagingly, risks never taken by subsequent developers to avoid long and bloody fights, has cost us more density and more housing units in this City than we would build in a decade following Minneapolis-style reform. Every project that shaves one floor here, or accepts an necessary setback there, results in dozens of units lost. You'd have to wipe out a lot of white bread single family housing stock to replace what is surrendered to neighborhoods and Council every day on projects, relative to what developers would build absent those pressures (often, even within the current zoning!). And those precedent setting fights that developers lose on are the "bigger opportunities" I am talking about.

It's not like YIMBYs have somehow managed to escape the "developer shill" criticism by wrapping themselves in a cloak of racial equity. Nobody is fooled by that. It just seems disingenuous.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

Jeffco and Littleton schools are good, but everyone else is beneath DPS, whose really done a phenomenal job for an urban school district.

Nobody, nobody, thinks Cherry Creek or Douglas County schools are beneath DPS. Unfortunately.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Nobody, nobody, thinks Cherry Creek or Douglas County schools are beneath DPS. Unfortunately.

Fair - I just think of all of that sprawl south of Denver as Littleton and/or Tech Center interchangeably - mea culpa.

My point remains that as long as DPS is good, Denver will be very desirable. As DPS has improved, Denver has grown more than anywhere else in the Front Range. When DPS was bad, Denver actually declined while the Front Range surged.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

I think that you VASTLY underestimate the sheer volume of parking lots and otherwise empty lots throughout the inner core, still.

Now go show me on Redfin or Loopnet how many are for sale? Show me which ones are prices sensibly for redevelopment by anything by a large national builder with deep pockets makes sense. Many large projects in the center core have replaced many of the parking spots, which is great, but they are mostly for rent (doing nothing to solve our K shaped recovery) and take years of planning and effort, with many changing hands multiple times over decades before something happening. Our only large condo project on the horizon (18th/Glenarm/Broadway) is at least 2 years into the process and still no groundbreaking. You make it sound as though developers are actively avoiding parking lots in order to scrape Victorians. Believe me, they want the easiest, fastest, and cheapest path forward. Tell the Dikeous to sell their blighted lots and not bother going through a multi-year hostile public process to upzone them.

This might be a shock to you, but you can already totally redevelop those properties. That's widely understood.

I was talking about redeveloping SFHs into multi-family for sale housing, not McMansions. The limited areas with MU zoning are being redeveloped, yes, but we end up with EIFS clad $600K slot home townhomes because people are desperate to buy anything. If there was more redevelopment opportunity, land prices can stabilize, and developers will quickly learn that their products will actually have to look great to sell. Upzoning all of Denver will actually give you all what you want. Preservation of the nicest historic homes, better architecture for new-builds, gentle density, less parking lots, and more transit riders.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

Now go show me on Redfin or Loopnet how many are for sale? Show me which ones are prices sensibly for redevelopment by anything by a large national builder with deep pockets makes sense. Many large projects in the center core have replaced many of the parking spots, which is great, but they are mostly for rent (doing nothing to solve our K shaped recovery) and take years of planning and effort, with many changing hands multiple times over decades before something happening. Our only large condo project on the horizon (18th/Glenarm/Broadway) is at least 2 years into the process and still no groundbreaking. You make it sound as though developers are actively avoiding parking lots in order to scrape Victorians. Believe me, they want the easiest, fastest, and cheapest path forward. Tell the Dikeous to sell their blighted lots and not bother going through a multi-year hostile public process to upzone them.


I was talking about redeveloping SFHs into multi-family for sale housing, not McMansions. The limited areas with MU zoning are being redeveloped, yes, but we end up with EIFS clad $600K slot home townhomes because people are desperate to buy anything. If there was more redevelopment opportunity, land prices can stabilize, and developers will quickly learn that their products will actually have to look great to sell. Upzoning all of Denver will actually give you all what you want. Preservation of the nicest historic homes, better architecture for new-builds, gentle density, less parking lots, and more transit riders.

You have a point about sellers asking for way too much for the developable parcels, but that's a separate issue that in and of itself dispels this notion that we have to tear the city down in order to grow. I would agree with you that land speculation is a huge problem that has made it easier to demolish Victorians than develop a developable parcel.

That doesn't mean the Victorians, the bungalows, the walkable storefronts, and the missing middle - all have to go. It means we have an out-of-control land speculation problem. I'd rather see changes to our property tax structure to disincentivize land speculation and other forms of speculation, than wholesale gutting of older vulnerable neighborhoods.

I would also rather see every single parcel on Colorado Blvd or Federal Blvd redeveloped. I see no justification to destroy the neighborhoods on both sides of these chronically under-developed corridors which are honestly becoming blighted.

We have more policy options than these false choices. Knowing something about both affordable housing and historic preservation would be helpful to guide this existential Denver debate. Of all these typologies that comprise old Denver, I'm less worried about the Victorian mansions and more worried about the affordable bungalows. Anyone who caveats "well we can save important Victorians" is specifically missing the point about neighborhood preservation. It has more to do with contributing to an established theme and less to do with whatever heiress lived there or whatever. Cap Hill for instance is too diverse to really focus preservation efforts around Victorian mansions; however, tearing down Squares and bungalows in Congress Park should be off-limits because that is an endangered housing option across the Front Range and once they're gone, we will never get those back. Same with California contemporary's and early ranches in Harvey Park or Krisana.

I have a crappy problematic ranch-style 6-plex next door to me that does not contribute to any theme of Congress Park, gets frequent police visits and spews garbage all over the neighborhood, which I honestly hope someone replaces with slot homes or affordable apartments or whatever. Del Norte Neighborhood Dev Corp developed an awesome, super skinny, affordable project on Emerson Street in Cap Hill that could be a great model for gentle density. That makes a neighborhood better, not having Hines or Greystone come in and demolish a whole block to erect an EIFS-dryvit box with concrete parking garage.

More of this:


Less of this:


And maybe we should also add mass transit (subway at some point?) to a neighborhood if we're going to double or triple its population density over a decade.

[gopokes21]

Apologies for being redundant, but just to recap, here is a long list of alternatives to tearing down neighborhoods for EIFS boxes and McMansions:

- Historic preservation
- Subdividing older structures
- Eliminating parking minimum requirements
- Mid-rise, small-lot infill
- Accessory dwelling units by right
- Disincentivizing land speculation with a new tax
- Developing parking lots and empty lots
- Repurposing abandoned buildings (churches, schools, offices, etc)
- Redeveloping blighted corridors (Colorado, Federal, Colfax etc)
- Consolidating public services to free up public-owned sites
- More density around train stations
- Making it easier to maximize density along major corridors and TOD areas
- Streamlining laws that effect condo sales

We CAN grow and have nice things, too! I love Denver and hope we stay "Denver" as we eventually become a city of a million people. Let Dallas be Dallas or whatever.

[The Dirt]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

My views haven't changed. When you guys stopped believing in middle ground, compromise, policy over ideology, and turned every issue, even unrelated ones, into a goddamn race war, that is what has changed. I still want to build big, build fast, and build tall. I don't think you need to declare war on white privilege to do it. Those are separate issues. Just because somebody wrote a book once on the history of redlining doesn't mean everything is about that.

Look, you want to paint us as some sort of radicals simply because one of the dozens of issues we've taken on is race-based zoning, you're welcome to that. You know as well as anyone that we've done a lot more, so don't try to paint us through the lens of an occasional Facebook notification. We're also fighting against the left NIMBYs, who think every "luxury" apartment development on a brownfield site is going to displace folks 5 miles away. Gentrification exists not due to the young white people moving to historically black and Latino neighborhoods, but because older (gasp, mostly white) people won't let them move to the neighborhoods that they want to by limiting housing supply. Their relatively deeper pockets aren't deep enough when compared to people who've had ridiculous equity gains by limiting the stock of housing in the most desirable neighborhoods.

Agree to disagree on this one. 9th and Colorado ended up with 1,100 units. If that had been 3,100 units it would be a better project, and you could have preserved 2,000 Congress Park bungalows. And the practicalities of real estate development are such that you could upzone all of Congress Park and not see 2,000 new units for decades. But you would probably see 200. And piss off a whole lot of people in the process. Who then, guess what, fight you the next time you want to rezone for 3,000 instead of 1,000.

If you guys actually focused on the substance of the issues, you would see that you are focused on the wrong things if you want to effect change. But you either lack the subject matter expertise, or you prefer the ideological "pure" battles; I am not sure which it is. But that is what I see as having changed.

Why can't we do both? 9th and Colorado are opportunities that come up once every 20 years. We get NIMBYs in those situations, whether they're worried about their pocketbooks, faux preservationists, neighborhood character pearl-clutchers, or explicitly racist. The point is it's not 3,300 units because of NIMBYs.

What I don't want to do is relegate density to certain areas only. We only have so many more hospitals left that can move out of town. What we're talking about is converting industrial land to multi-family residential. Maybe that's all that's going to work in Denver, but I don't want this city to be a split between Mayberry and Manhattan.

I actually disagree that the mass upzoning produces better results, or more housing over the long term, because it can't deliver at scale. The notion that we are going to organically redevelop our neighborhoods with gentle density one lot at a time over the years is a little bit naïve and out of touch with how the vast majority of development, even infill development, occurs today. Just look at how damned expensive it is to build a single ADU...

I see your point, but we're talking about 85% of Denver's land area. Changing SU zoning to TU or some sort of TU+ that allows triplexes or quads is not a silver bullet, but it's certainly going to help and it's going to put young families with kids into neighborhoods they want to be in. It's also going to get everyone else comfortable with the idea that duplexes aren't ruining their neighborhoods, because they fucking haven't and won't. Telling people that you can live in a highrise apartment somewhere by the tracks while you're young, but if you want to start a family, go move to Wisconsin does not make for a great city. By the way, new builds are fucking expensive, ADU or not. However, fighting the ADU rezoning fight is still worth it when you can provide folks with an opportunity to add a separate entrance to their basements and call it an ADU. It still provides value when you can clean out and plumb your literal historic carriage home at 7th and Lafayette. All individual drops in the bucket still help collectively.

In the meantime, the high-profile fights - a parking lot here, a parking lot there - actually set the tone and the precedent for how zoning fights take place in our City. How CPD approaches them, how Council approaches them, how RNOs approach them, and most importantly, how developers approach them. I have no way to quantify this, but I assure you the legacy of that god forsaken No High Rises in West Highlands fight, in terms of political shifts, and most damagingly, risks never taken by subsequent developers to avoid long and bloody fights, has cost us more density and more housing units in this City than we would build in a decade following Minneapolis-style reform. Every project that shaves one floor here, or accepts an necessary setback there, results in dozens of units lost. You'd have to wipe out a lot of white bread single family housing stock to replace what is surrendered to neighborhoods and Council every day on projects, relative to what developers would build absent those pressures (often, even within the current zoning!). And those precedent setting fights that developers lose on are the "bigger opportunities" I am talking about.

It's not like YIMBYs have somehow managed to escape the "developer shill" criticism by wrapping themselves in a cloak of racial equity. Nobody is fooled by that. It just seems disingenuous.

We're still showing up to ever Denargo rezoning fight and contentious rezoning. We're still working with CPD and council to upzone neighborhoods to allow ADUs. You've decided that in addition to that, fighting for racial equity through creating housing opportunity to build generational wealth isn't a fight worth having and that we're dumb to do that. I disagree.

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

We're also fighting against the left NIMBYs, who think every "luxury" apartment development on a brownfield site is going to displace folks 5 miles away. Gentrification exists not due to the young white people moving to historically black and Latino neighborhoods, but because older (gasp, mostly white) people won't let them move to the neighborhoods that they want to by limiting housing supply. Their relatively deeper pockets aren't deep enough when compared to people who've had ridiculous equity gains by limiting the stock of housing in the most desirable neighborhoods.

I agree with all of this. What I don't understand is we we can't find a strategic middle ground where we infill as much as possible while still keeping "desirable neighborhoods" desirable.

There's good things about every single Denver neighborhood. Why don't we keep those things at all cost, and let developers build around what we have now?

The problem is Denver has gotten itself into a technically-virtuous cycle of higher-income in-migration. In this dynamic, renters and lower-income homeowners are extremely vulnerable. The answer to this problem isn't more housing instability and development chaos.

[coolmandan03]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

And maybe we should also add mass transit (subway at some point?) to a neighborhood if we're going to double or triple its population density over a decade.

Can't afford rail to the places they already increased taxes in 2006 for - but lets plan a subway! I have a feeling you have researched tunneling cost (about $350,000 per foot)

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by gopokes21

Urban economics has this tendency to redevelop the same parcel every 20 years, because that's what the market really wants above all else, while leaving everything a mile away less dense. Planning has the opportunity to "provide clarity" and focus development forces where it actually improves the whole of the city, instead of redeveloping the same parcel every 20 years. When you provide a framework with guardrails for the private market, you start moving the ball forward instead of one step forward and one step backward all the time.

What am I missing here? Lots are redeveloping every 20 years? Where? China?Mars? Hell, depreciation is 39.5 years so if the useful lifespan of a building is only 20 years all property owners are getting hosed!

We are a long way off from a balanced medium of planning and adequate housing supply. The nature of government is to grow, thus why planning is such a hard thing to get right. All of the places that folks want to save and love the most, including all those lovely historic things you speak of, were developed BEFORE rigorous, burdensome, prescriptive zoning standards. What are people so afraid of? The current system is not working nor is it even close to working - there is ample evidence of that. We are building less interesting places and projects and segregating uses more intricately since zoning came about and it seems to me EVERYONE thinks that what is happening now is not better than what happened 100 years ago.

In general, I do not think most on here or the general public understand just how prescriptive zoning and design standards have become. Setbacks, height, road width, life/safety access, parking requirements and stall sizes, mandatory turn radius for a hook and ladder truck to fight a single family home fire, building opening %'s, build-to requirements, etc etc the list goes on. ALL of these (often overlapping) standards and requirements are contributing to and helping create boring and homogeneous development. Could many developers step up and do a better job, absolutely there is no debate on that, but don't for one second think that the more requirements and prescriptive standards will produce more interesting places - that will not work.

Example: I'd love to go out a build a food truck court adjacent to one of my projects and in fact have tried to do so. It's not possible in the City of Denver (unless of course the City does it on public property where they don't have to follow all of their own standards). Plus those food trucks can't be within 500 feet from an existing restaurant - so basically no where in the center city with a zoning that would accommodate restaurant use. The devil is always in the details and so much of our discussion on here is high level. The folks executing these projects and administering this zoning are dealing with hundreds of pages of standards and details, all of which effectively limit what can and cannot be done. if you don't believe me, start reading the neighborhood plans, station area plans, zoning code, building code and amendments, green codes and programs, etc...

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Nobody, nobody, thinks Cherry Creek or Douglas County schools are beneath DPS. Unfortunately.

Plenty of people think Douglas County Schools are beneath DPS- just not the one's in Highlands Ranch or Parker. Just like people in DPS look down on Montbello and Green Valley Ranch, but not schools in Wash Park, University, Central Park, etc. Can't say anything about Cherry Creek, specifically Cherry Creek HS, it's the gold standard for the Front Range. Except when you get into the Cherry Creek Schools in Aurora, then people start looking down on them.

All this swirls around whether a school is too brown/black, too white, or that nice sweet-spot of diversity fueled by upper middle class households pouring their money and attention into the school.

Once again, race and socio-economic status rears it's head. Because everything is about race at this point when you're talking about neighborhoods in Denver. Is it any wonder that YIMBY Denver is constantly virtue signalling?

[gopokes21]

Originally Posted by laniroj

What am I missing here? Lots are redeveloping every 20 years? Where? China?Mars? Hell, depreciation is 39.5 years so if the useful lifespan of a building is only 20 years all property owners are getting hosed!

Real estate development does not strictly follow MACRS accounting principles. Just off the top of my head...

1. The restaurants at 7th and Grant - how recently were those gut renovated?
2. First gen (RENT-era) "urban living" townhomes throughout LoHi and Uptown routinely get demo'd for land assembly and ultimately big boxes.
3. The Golden Triangle no longer resembles a neighborhood from any one era because it's been redeveloped cyclically.
4. Everything on Speer gets demolished every 20-30 years throughout history.
5. Cherry Creek Whole Foods, and encompassing block, is about to be demolished well before the 30 year mark. I think the City participated in building that Clayton garage like 10 years ago?
6. Breweries throughout RiNo are being torn down just 10 years after being gut reno'd from shell condition.

What you're missing is that a site's potential HBU (highest & best use) frequently dwarfs what is currently there even with depreciation tricks and high-end tenants. In fact, you viewing Denver development through the lens of sitting on a property for 39.5 years to maximize the depreciation schedule, explains the rest of what you've said.

Development pressure here isn't yet as abusive in say, Houston (or Dallas) where a row of new slot homes got demo'd before anyone even moved in, for Trammell Crow (also one of the usual suspects here in Denver) to tear them all down for a 730-unit complex.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-great-texas-real-estate-boom/

"It was on the eastern edge of this neighborhood that I saw one of the most classically Houston real estate business phenomena ever. Not far from Yale Street and adjacent to a large vacant lot, a small-time developer bought and knocked down a few old bungalows and replaced them with a line of town houses. Before anyone moved in, Trammell Crow Residential bought and demolished them to make way for one of two upscale mid-rise apartment complexes now sprawling over the site. The 730 new units added to the already-cramped neighborhood—the city has done little or nothing to alleviate traffic on increasingly overburdened Yale Street—are renting for between $1,500 a month, for a 630-square-foot one-bedroom, and $2,860, for a plush two-bedroom."

We are a long way off from a balanced medium of planning and adequate housing supply. The nature of government is to grow, thus why planning is such a hard thing to get right. All of the places that folks want to save and love the most, including all those lovely historic things you speak of, were developed BEFORE rigorous, burdensome, prescriptive zoning standards. What are people so afraid of? The current system is not working nor is it even close to working - there is ample evidence of that. We are building less interesting places and projects and segregating uses more intricately since zoning came about and it seems to me EVERYONE thinks that what is happening now is not better than what happened 100 years ago.

It's not very novel to say something has changed for the worst, coinciding with an expansion in government. What's changed isn't the size of government or extent of urban planning, but rather the advanced-stage commodification of real estate. I'm not saying "housing as a commodity" is good or bad, but it's undeniable. There is a very sophisticated commercial real estate industry here in Denver that just does things differently than in Denver of old.

We've had highly-prescriptive city plans before. In fact, Denver is one of the best examples of the "City Beautiful" movement. Those prescriptive plans required less bureaucracy to implement than permitting some out-of-state REIT's (who will eventually sue everyone who touches their transaction) latest $150 million boxy beast. Gee I wonder why.

I abhor that "City Beautiful" coincided with redlining and abject racism in housing, but today we have an opportunity to achieve similar progressive advancements with an added focus on racial equity.

In general, I do not think most on here or the general public understand just how prescriptive zoning and design standards have become. Setbacks, height, road width, life/safety access, parking requirements and stall sizes, mandatory turn radius for a hook and ladder truck to fight a single family home fire, building opening %'s, build-to requirements, etc etc the list goes on. ALL of these (often overlapping) standards and requirements are contributing to and helping create boring and homogeneous development. Could many developers step up and do a better job, absolutely there is no debate on that, but don't for one second think that the more requirements and prescriptive standards will produce more interesting places - that will not work.

I disagree that the problem with development is setbacks, road width, life safety, fire department access, etc. Call me old fashioned, but I'd say those are all good things.

I agree that parking minimums should be eliminated city-wide. I still happen to believe that handicap spaces and other stall "attributes" (not just size) should be regulated.

Example: I'd love to go out a build a food truck court adjacent to one of my projects and in fact have tried to do so. It's not possible in the City of Denver (unless of course the City does it on public property where they don't have to follow all of their own standards). Plus those food trucks can't be within 500 feet from an existing restaurant - so basically no where in the center city with a zoning that would accommodate restaurant use. The devil is always in the details and so much of our discussion on here is high level. The folks executing these projects and administering this zoning are dealing with hundreds of pages of standards and details, all of which effectively limit what can and cannot be done. if you don't believe me, start reading the neighborhood plans, station area plans, zoning code, building code and amendments, green codes and programs, etc...

Maybe we don't need a food truck court. It's not a great use of space, aside from Friday nights when it's busy.