Evans Medical Center Plans to Sue City After Council Approves Downzoning

The Evans Medical Center lost a battle at Denver City Council last week, but the fight isn’t over. “We are going to seek justice through legal means,” says Ramin Vatan, who owns the center with his wife, Dr. Sara Vatan.

The center is located at 4700 East Iliff Avenue, in a former Healthmark facility that the Vatans bought in September 2020. That address falls under the Near Southeast Area Plan (NSAP), which was created as part of the city’s Neighborhood Planning Initiative. The NPI calls for communities to work with city officials to make recommendations for how growth should occur in nineteen areas of Denver, each comprising a collection of neighborhoods.

So far, five area plans have been completed, one more is in progress, and three are on deck. Denver City Council approved the NSAP on May 22.

After that approval, councilmember Kendra Black, who represents the district, introduced resolution 23-0579, an amendment proposing a reduced-height restriction for any future developments on several properties in the University Hills South neighborhood, including the center. The area previously had a zoning classification that would have allowed structures up to six stories in height; under the amendment, they could only be three – or four, if the project includes a certain amount of affordable housing.

The center’s owners argued that the amendment would greatly reduce the value of their property – at one point, they had a deal for a developer to build a six-story complex that would include space for the center, they say – as well as the center’s ability to serve clients. Vatan says the center provides care for 6,000 patients, many of whom are on Medicare or Medicaid and struggle to find consistent care at other facilities, or cannot afford to pay at all. Both of the Vatans are immigrants.

An hours-long public comment session preceded council’s June 20 vote on the amendment. “What was amazing was when we saw people that we haven’t seen [in a long time] talk. … They just showed up on their own time and their own dime just to defend the clinic,” recalls Vatan. He adds that the center had also received overwhelming support through Twitter and a Change.org petition that gathered “over 1,000 signatures” between when it went up on June 19 and the council hearing on June 20.

Even so, the amendment was approved, 10-3. Candi CdeBaca, Debbie Ortega and Jamie Torres voted against it; other members said the decision was difficult but ultimately determined that the required community engagement standards and legal standards had been met.

The center’s attorneys disagree. On June 19, Amy Brimah and James N. Phillips filed a legal complaint regarding the NSAP on behalf of the Evans Medical Center and Bethesda Professional Office Building Condominium (a neighboring property that is also affected by the legislative rezoning). The complaint claims that the NSAP does not meet its own internal equity requirements nor the equity requirements of Denver’s broader planning procedures.

“The City Council and Planning Board exceeded their jurisdiction in approving the Final NSAP with respect to the Iliff Properties,” it argues, and based on that, Brimah says, the June 20 vote violated state law.

Black’s zoning amendment reads: “The City Council has determined, based on evidence and testimony presented at the public hearing, that the map amendment set forth below…is consistent with the City’s adopted plans.”

But Brimah says the NSAP should not have been considered final or fully valid until the end of a 28-day period during which a “party with standing” could file a complaint against it, noting that this 28-day period is required “under the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure 106….when ‘any governmental body or officer or any lower judicial body exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions has exceeded its jurisdiction or abused its discretion, and there is no plain, speedy and adequate remedy otherwise provided by law.'”

According to Brimah, the 28-day period began on May 23, after Mayor Michael Hancock signed the ordinance approving the NSAP.  Any complaints submitted within that “final approval period” must be resolved before the NSAP should be considered fully approved, she says, and the center’s objection would definitely qualify.

As a result, she argues, the June 20 vote was not authorized. Council “held the hearing for the rezoning based upon the validity of the NSAP – which had not passed its final approval period,” she notes.

Brimah brought up this concern in a written comment sent to council for the June 20 hearing, but the concern was not addressed.

The Denver City Attorney’s Office has not yet responded to a request for comment regarding Brimah’s complaint.

The arguments against the NSAP do not end there. According to the June 19 filing, “Despite the mandate in the Comprehensive Plan requiring engagement of Plaintiffs by the City and County, representatives of the City and County flipped the burden and blamed Plaintiffs for not engaging and reaching out to the City and County.”

That’s a reference to Denver’s Comprehensive Plan 2040, which the city describes as creating a “holistic and sustainable vision to guide the future of Denver.” The complaint claims that the NSAP zoning does not follow the recommendations of the comprehensive plan or the “required equity considerations” of Blueprint Denver, another citywide land-use plan.

According to Black, the center had the chance to give feedback for several years, while the NSAP was being developed.

While the center was aware of the NSAP work, Vatan responds, he didn’t think he needed to get involved in the planning process because the first draft recommended a height limit of five stories for the area surrounding their property, and he and his wife were okay with that.

The second draft of the NSAP, which recommends a height limit of three stories, was not posted for public review until February of this year. Black notes that Vatan “had until the end of March to comment, and he did not.”

But now he’ll make his concerns known in another way. In addition to the complaint already filed against the NSAP, Vatan says, the center plans to file suit against the rezoning amendment itself.

But for now, Vatan is “moving along with day-to-day business of the clinic,” he says. “We are hopeful that the clinic can survive this.”