Denver has updated its zoning code to streamline the approval process, relax design standards and open up more space for businesses ranging from bars and restaurants to salons and tattoo parlors to set up outdoor patios.
The updated regulations, approved via a unanimous City Council vote Monday night, build off temporary, pandemic-era changes the city made to its rules to provide flexibility to small businesses struggling under public health occupancy restrictions.
They are the first step in a broader effort city officials are calling the Outdoor Places Program. More changes that would clear the way for patios in public rights of way including in place of on-street parking spots or even in closed-down streets will be the subject of a public outreach effort starting later this month, officials say.
The code amendments approved Monday make a number of changes. Here are some key details:
• Any nonresidential business may now apply to create patio space previously reserved only for eating and drinking establishments. That includes retailers, art galleries, tattoo parlors and more.
• These so-called “outdoor gathering areas” do not have to be connected to the building housing the applying business and do not have to be bordered by vertical barriers like fences or planters. Being contiguous to the building and having clear delineation were previous requirements of the zoning code. In cases where there may be a conflict with pedestrian or vehicle traffic, barriers may still be required.
• Design standards have been relaxed including rules that mandated a patio be at least 50% open to the sky. The city has also drafted a short list of design guideline recommendations to encourage good design and support businesses looking to add a patio.
• Approval of new patios previously required a public hearing before the city’s Board of Adjustment. Now applicants can skip that final step with the city’s zoning administrator empowered to grant approval.
• The biggest change in terms of impact for the average Denverite, is that businesses have the option to convert previously required off-street parking spaces into patios. The amount of parking that can be converted depends on the zoning of the area in which the applicant’s business is located. Businesses in popular commercial districts governed by what the city calls main street zoning have the opportunity to convert up to 80% of their parking into patio space. In suburban zone districts, that allowance falls to 30% of required off-street parking. Accessible spaces required by the Americans with Disabilities Act cannot be converted.
Council members, in a committee hearing last month, voiced concern about what less space for cars in parking lots will mean for on-street parking in already congested commercial areas like South Gaylord Street.
But Brad Johnson, the city planner who presented these changes to the Council, said that public outreach revealed a substantial appetite for more patios even at the expense of harder-to-find parking. The pandemic provided proof of concept for many, he said.
“So far, what I’ve heard is people saw the value. They saw it in action,” he said at that hearing.
Only two community members spoke at Monday’s public hearing, both in favor of the changes.
The Hispanic Restaurant Association was one of the groups consulted about the changes, co-founder and president John Jaramillo said during the hearing. He appreciates that the changes will ease regulatory burdens and provide more places for people to gather.
“It will increase the attractiveness of the neighborhood restaurants,” he said.
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