Zoning board shuts down majority of variances for new Colfax police station

Denver police just got busted by the city’s zoning board.

The Denver Police Department must return to the drawing board after many of its plans for a new District 6 headquarters building on East Colfax Avenue were rejected by the city’s Board of Adjustment for Zoning on July 14.

The department requested 10 variances from existing zoning codes by the committee, but only two were approved: the height of the proposed building and a split-zoning process, due to the parcel sitting on land made up of multiple codes. The others, including spaces for parking lots and garages, were denied.

Now DPD must return with updated variance requests within 20 days or create a new plan that doesn’t require them if it wants to move into the construction phase.

Some neighborhood leaders are pleased with the zoning board’s denial, though, arguing that the department should use some of that space at the corner of Colfax and Washington Street to create housing and activate the area rather than closing off the lot with walls and swathing parking lots.

“We are in the midst of a housing crisis. We have a deficit of tens of thousands of housing units that we need to construct,” Frank Locantore, director of the Colfax Business Improvement District (BID), says. “Two: it would be great for the businesses to thrive, and the more people that live in close proximity to your business, the greater the chance you have of surviving and thriving.”

Clock is ticking

Funding for the updated police headquarters will come from Elevate Denver bond approved by voters in 2017. The $937 million general obligation bond program, created to pinpoint “critical” infrastructure improvements like sidewalks, libraries and public-safety facilities, has a 10-year lifespan. With District 6’s current headquarters allegedly being well past capacity, the remodel fits onto Elevate Denver’s list — but it’s funding is running out of time.

“What the Denver Police Department District site will look like at some point in the future has been a conversation for longer than I’ve been on council,” Councilmember Chris Hinds, who took office in 2019 and represents the area in which the headquarters will go, tells Westword. “Some of the city folks tell me that they have to break ground by the end of the year or potentially forfeit the bond funds. So we’re kind of a little bit up against a deadline.”

According to Locantore, the plan in 2021 was to move District 6’s headquarters from its current location at 1566 N. Washington St. to the intersection of Cherokee Street and West 13th Avenue in the Golden Triangle neighborhood. Then, in 2024, the BID got word that DPD decided to keep the police station at the Washington Street lot and rebuild it.

The plan was — and still is — to create a three-story building with a parking lot, a two-story garage and larger office spaces for DPD. A small residential lot was later built into the plan after community backlash, but Locantore argues that some of the parking spaces should be cut to make space for a 200-unit residential building; he’s even brought in an architect to create plans for the police department to fit it in.

“I certainly respect the Colfax BID for being willing to not just say no,” Hinds says, “but going further and saying, ‘And here are ways you can get our yes.”

Locantore says the BID’s opposition to the plan isn’t a slight toward police or architects. He agrees that police need more space, but says the city “should be building housing in every nook and cranny that we can.”

In April, Denverite reported that police officials had argued against tall housing close to the headquarters because officers could be ambushed by gunfire from apartment windows. Cover that shields officers as they walk from the parking lot to the building was later added to the plan.

A lack of housing was not why DPD had so many variance requests in front of the city’s Board of Adjustments, though. It’s also not the only reason the BID is upset.

District 6 building plan

The police building will sit on two different zones: commercial and residential. Some of the plan’s features, like the three-story height, lack of lower windows, no street-level active uses in one of the buildings and a surface parking lot next to a transit corridor would go against zoning codes in those areas, requiring variance approval.

Most of these variances were denied by the adjustment board because they don’t fit in with an adopted neighborhood plan, however.

The East Central Area Plan was a land-use framework approved by the Denver City Council in 2020, intended to reactivate the area through affordable housing, walkability improvements and business improvements on the Colfax Avenue corridor. All in all, having a big headquarters with blank concrete walls and large parking lots would go against this promise, according to Hinds.

“We want it to be a pedestrian corridor,” he says. “So that means windows, that means spaces on the ground floor that people want to go into or, at least, stroll by. And they don’t want to stroll by a parking lot or a parking garage. The idea is to activate the space for people, not for cars.”

To Locantore, none of the specific variance requests are directly egregious, but the large amount and lack of housing together are disrespectful to the community.

“I can only speculate, but it just sounds like they didn’t think they needed to follow code because it’s a city project. They thought it was going to sail through,” he says.

Hinds adds that if all 10 variances were approved, it would make the City Council look like it was completely wrong when voting on the area plan back in 2020.

“The Board of Adjustment is being asked to say, ‘You know those plans that Denver City Council passed? Well, they’re wrong 10 times,” he says.

For Locantore and Hinds, the issues boil down to a lack of outreach regarding the plans.

Lack of communication

Back in April, Mayor Mike Johnston told Denverite that he had met with the neighborhood multiple times to discuss plans for new District 6 building.

“I think their feedback was pretty clear, and I don’t disagree with it, which is we want more housing on Colfax, we want more housing density, and we think it makes sense to have it wherever you have public land,” Johnston told the publication.

And there were some updates to the plan afterward, like the addition of some space for housing, but Locantore says that space isn’t large enough for effective development, and that communication has not been sound throughout the decade-long process.

“They have not done community outreach,” he says. “I think that the collaborative efforts nearly always produce better results as long as everybody is coming to the table with the shared goals of the project, which I have 100% confidence that we’ve all got shared goals on this.”

Hinds would like to see more community input around the planning and construction process, too.

“We owe it to the people who fund our city and, frankly, my paycheck and the paychecks of all the employees who do real estate, all our police officers. We owe it to them to ask them when we make changes to important assets like our police department,” he says.

In response to an inquiry about its plans for the new District 6 headquarters and the neighborhood issues surrounding it, DPD issued the following statement.

“Public safety remains a top priority for Colfax residents and the city remains committed to delivering an updated and modern police station for Denver Police District 6,” part of the statement reads. “The city is currently working through the zoning board’s feedback and will share more as this work progresses.”