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For more than 15 years, Denver’s comprehensive plan, “Blueprint Denver,” has taken a binary view of neighborhood change—either a neighborhood should expect to change, or it shouldn’t—but it’s looking as though that practice might soon end.  The current system, under which every City lot lies within an “area of stability” or an “area of change,” now seems likely to disappear in favor of a four-tiered categorization developing as part of the “Denveright” long-range planning process.

A bit of background: under Blueprint Denver, the City aims to funnel development into “areas of change” that comprise roughly one fifth of Denver’s land area.  The plan’s complementary goal is in turn to limit growth in “areas of stability” that cover the balance.  Denver development pressure has to some extent followed that vision crafted in 2002, especially as new projects have advanced along
Continue Reading Denver to Take More Nuanced Approach to Growth Planning

On Thursday, the Denver Election Division released the final unofficial vote totals for the 2017 municipal election, and it appears that Initiative 300 will pass with 54% of the vote.  We discussed the Green Roof Initiative in a post on October 24, but now that the measure has passed, we need to take another…

On Monday night, the Denver City Council approved an ordinance creating Denver’s fifty-third historic district: Packard’s Hill Historic District. Located in the West Highlands neighborhood, the District spans north to south from 35th to 32nd Avenue, and east to west from Lowell Boulevard to Perry Street.  The new district encompasses eight city blocks, and includes thirty-nine Queen Anne-style houses, twenty-nine bungalows, and twenty-six classic cottage houses dating from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Continue Reading Denver City Council Designates Packard’s Hill Historic District in West Highlands

David Brewster, a summer law clerk with Otten Johnson, authored this post. David is a rising third-year law student at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Rapid population growth and lagging infrastructure development in the Denver Metro Area are re-energizing a debate between advocates of long term growth strategies and “slow-growth” advocates. Recently, a Lakewood-based grassroots group known as Strategic Growth for Lakewood submitted more than 7,500 signatures supporting a growth management initiative for the upcoming general election. The initiative’s proposed ordinance would limit new residential unit developments to 1% of exiting units in a given year. Additionally, the ordinance would require City Council approval and public hearings for projects of 40 or more residential units.
Continue Reading Revitalizing a Rocky Mountain Debate: “Slow-Growth” Strategies v. Long-Term Planning