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Staff urges denial of single‑lot rezoning at 3601 N. Monaco; planning board had recommended approval
Summary
CPD recommended denial of a rezoning request at 3601 N. Monaco Street that would allow a duplex on a roughly 6,000 sq ft vacant lot; the planning board recommended approval and the committee voted to forward the item to full council after debate over neighborhood plan guidance and whether the rezoning would establish a new pattern.
City planning staff recommended denying a rezoning that would allow two‑unit housing at 3601 North Monaco Street, saying the request departs from the neighborhood's established zoning pattern and lacks the level of neighborhood input Blueprint Denver requires to set a new pattern.
Joe Green of Community Planning and Development told the Community Planning and Housing Committee the vacant lot is just over 6,000 square feet and that the applicant seeks to change the zone from ESUDX (single‑unit urban edge with a 6,000 sq ft minimum) to ETUC (two‑unit urban edge, 5,500 sq ft minimum). "This is another application that staff is recommending denial and the planning board unanimously recommended approval," he said, noting the planning board and staff reached different conclusions when applying the code's three review criteria.
The disagreement turned on how to read Blueprint Denver and the Park Hill neighborhood plan. Green said the neighborhood plan's language supporting a "compatible mix of housing types" did not, in CPD's view, rise to the level of an adopted small‑area plan or clear neighborhood input that would justify changing the established zoning map. He told the committee the staff analysis found the request would be a departure from the existing zoning pattern and therefore did not meet the Blueprint Denver guidance for rezonings that set a new pattern.
Council members pressed several factual points and options. Councilmember Jamie Torres asked whether a tandem home or duplex could already be built on the lot; staff replied that exceptions allowing tandem forms require an existing structure built before 1955 and therefore do not apply on this vacant parcel. Councilmember Dylan Lewis, who moved the committee action, said he saw the built environment in the block — with multiple duplexes on the same block — and questioned whether the application truly establishes a new pattern in practice.
Committee chair Councilmember Sarah Paradis summarized the competing readings: "If we're only building single family, we are absolutely not building things that are attractive and affordable to a diversity of ages," she said, arguing that duplex forms can expand housing choices in places where housing stock and affordability have changed since older plans were written.
After questions and debate about the 2010 rezoning history, small‑area plan applicability and the potential for a lot split or alternative district (USUA) analysis, the committee took a procedural vote to forward the item to the full City Council for floor consideration.
The committee's referral does not decide the rezoning; the full council will consider the staff report, planning board recommendation and public testimony at a later hearing.
