Denver Planning Board Meeting — September 2025

Denver’s Planning Board moved briskly through a short but consequential agenda this week, recommending an industrial-mixed-use rezoning in Sun Valley and previewing the final stretch for the Far Southwest Neighborhood Plan. Here’s what matters—and what’s next.

Sun Valley: Small Lot, Big Signal for Industrial Preservation

Address: 1252 W Byers Place
Action: Recommend approval of rezoning from ETU-B (Urban Edge, two-unit) to IMX-3 with waivers.
Vote: Unanimous “aye.”

Senior planner Justin Montgomery framed the case simply: this 7,800-sf vacant lot sits inside Blueprint Denver’s Sun Valley Manufacturing Preservation Area. Standard IMX-3 would allow a fully residential building; the waiver strips that option at the street level, requiring an industrial/manufacturing/wholesale primary use on the ground floor (and disallowing townhouse form), with flexibility for office or residential above. The goal: keep real jobs and production uses on the block while still enabling modest mixed-use.

Applicant concept: Owner Mark Hoisch showed a test fit—about 3,000 sf of industrial at grade, five off-street spaces, a small screened yard by the alley, and second-floor residential or office. Neighbors who earlier worried about “junkyard” outcomes were told that use is not permitted; some auto-related commercial uses also fall outside the waiver.

Why it matters: Board members backed the approach but flagged a policy tension: use-restricting waivers can unintentionally narrow viable outcomes on small parcels. Staff emphasized this is context-specific to the manufacturing preservation map—useful as a bridge until a broader IMX text amendment is written.

Timeline: South Platte River Committee review next; City Council hearing targeted for late October.

Far Southwest NPI Plan: Edits In, Adoption Window Opens

Planner Brian Mateo walked through the third and likely final draft of the Far Southwest Area Plan, covering College View, Fort Logan, Bear Valley and surrounding neighborhoods.

What the plan prioritizes (and residents largely support):

Complete commercial centers on Federal, Sheridan, Wadsworth, and Evans—less asphalt, more internal street grids, public spaces, and room for housing over retail to sustain local businesses.

Quiet suburban neighborhoods remain predominantly Residential Low, with limited transitions to Low-Medium near Federal to support future BRT/TOD.

Safer street design: traffic calming, better crossings, and a Harvard/Vassar greenway link toward Sheridan and the West Harvard Gulch Trail.

Transportation options: bikeway updates, targeted microtransit in hard-to-serve pockets.

Quality-of-life upgrades: river access, trail connections, and yes—clear community interest in a dog park (no site named; Parks prefers flexibility during acquisition).

Notable revisions: Simpler, more “plain-language” policies; added guidance to preserve tree canopy, emphasize bike parking on trails, and explore a Far Southwest business incubator and future business association. References to a grant-dependent Federal Blvd TOD implementation plan were softened (policies remain; funding is uncertain).

The hard conversation: Several board members pressed on the housing math. If most of the map stays Residential Low (larger lots, single-unit character), can local businesses and transit investments truly thrive? Staff’s answer: the centers and corridors are where real capacity lives—5 stories by-right (7 with income-restricted bonuses)—and a legislative rezoning is slated to bring old-code shopping centers into the modern code to actually unlock that potential.

Schedule: Revised draft posts now, one more month of targeted outreach, then Planning Board public hearing Nov. 5 and City Council adoption in December. Legislative rezonings to implement the plan would follow in Q1 2026.

Also Noted

1965 Vrain St. rezoning was postponed to Dec. 3, 2025 at the applicant’s request.

Next Planning Board meeting on Sept. 17 is canceled.

Why this meeting mattered

Denver is testing a fine-grained balance: protect industrial job space in the city’s core while still allowing incremental housing and studios above—and steering most new housing to auto-centric commercial corridors that can absorb it. If the Far Southwest plan hits adoption and the follow-on rezonings actually land, expect a wave of corridor mixed-use infill—with shopfronts, mid-rise apartments, and safer streets—while interior blocks keep their suburban feel.

What to watch next:

Whether Council keeps the Sun Valley waiver model intact—or nudges broader IMX reforms.

How far the Far Southwest legislative rezoning goes on corridor parcels—and whether it truly seeds space for local businesses, not just chains.

Funding paths for Federal BRT/TOD elements and the Harvard/Vassar greenway, the connective tissue that makes the whole framework work.

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