DENVER — Plans for a new Denver Police District 6 Headquarters were sent back to the drawing board Tuesday after a zoning board rejected most of the city's requests for exemptions to neighborhood design standards.
The City and County of Denver requested ten variances from existing zoning codes for the District 6 building design: a three-story building with a parking lot and a two-story garage. Only two were granted.
The new station is paid for by the 2017 voter-approved Elevate Denver bond. A spokesperson for the Denver Police Department says the district needs a new space because the current one is "outdated and over-capacity," operating at 250%.
The space was built decades ago and converted into a police station in 1995. The new building is designed to have updated space and a community room for residents to meet with police.
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However, not everyone is happy with the design. Colfax Business Improvement District Executive Director Frank Locantore, flanked by several other nearby residents and business owners, showed up to the zoning adjustment hearing with a plan of their own.
“This was not anything about the police themselves," Locantore said. "The police are my friends. They're an important partner for the community, and not just a business improvement district. It was about how we maximize the benefit of a publicly owned asset, this city-owned land."
Right now, the lot sits in two different zones: a mix of commercial, office and residential zoning that prioritizes ground-level retail and walkable streets.
On the side closest to Colfax is a small lot that wouldn't be part of the new station's design.
“We’ve got vacant lots that size already on Colfax," Locantore said. "With property owners that have commissioned developers and architects to build housing on lots that size, but they can't get them to pencil out. So what's the result? We have a vacant lot on Colfax for a decade or more.”
Vacant lots, he says, are bad for business. Housing would be better, something Locantore doesn't see as possible with the station's design.
"If that building was demolished and the size of the parcel was the limiting size that it currently is, this would be one more vacant lot that the community would be burdened with for more than a decade," he said.
In Tuesday's hearing, representatives for the police station argued that the height, features and design were for officer and property safety.
A DPD spokesperson says that's a huge concern since each of their district station buildings has been damaged at some point through vandalism, gunfire or broken windows.
The city Department of Community Planning and Development agreed that the project presented for the new station justified the code exceptions, but the five-member zoning adjustment board—the final authority on zoning appeals—disagreed.
While they allowed building height exceptions, meaning the station could be taller than surrounding apartments, they required more "transparency," meaning windows and fewer blank walls against main roads. The current design, they claimed, wasn't compatible with the neighborhood.
Denver7 reached out to Denver Police and the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure for a response to the design denial and a look into next steps. We were told neither organization could respond on Tuesday.
