As homes across Denver are razed each year at an increasingly rapid rate – with a 77 percent jump in demolition permits in 2005 to 352 – a task force has begun the first review of the city zoning ordinance in 50 years.
Since 2003, the number of teardowns has risen each year; there have been 844 demolition permits issued from Jan. 1, 2003, through mid-May, according to city data.
By May 16, some 111 demolition permits had been issued for this year, putting the city on an annual pace of more than 300.
With limited tools, neighborhoods such as Park Hill and West Highland have turned to historic-preservation laws to stem the trend.
Historic preservation, however, is time-consuming and costly, and neighborhood groups say other ways to manage the city’s growth are needed.
“How we resolve this will have a big impact on what Denver looks like in the future,” said Kathleen Brooker, president of Historic Denver Inc.
Starting this week, Denver’s Zoning Code Task Force will hold five public meetings to discuss new ways to balance development and preservation.
“It’s clear to me that Denver needs tools to deal with this,” said Richard Moe, president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Teardowns have become a national trend, with 300 communities in 33 states affected, according to the trust.
The National Association of Home Builders estimates that about 75,000 houses are being razed each year and replaced with bigger homes.
Homebuilders and Realtors say the process bolsters the tax base and keeps families in cities. Critics counter that the process is often indiscriminate.
“The pace of teardowns has amounted to an orgy of irrational destruction – including Denver,” said Moe.
“People want to live in an older urban community,” he said, “but they bring their McMansion sensibilities and often destroy the character of a neighborhood.”
In some cases, the new houses in Denver are three times the size of the 1920s bungalows they replace, a National Trust study found.
Historic preservation is being used as a means to try to control teardowns in Hilltop, Park Hill, West Highland, Curtis Park and Harvard Gulch Park.
But it takes two to six years to get the designation, costs thousands of dollars and relies on something being “historic” about the area.
Leading the way in demolitions are Cherry Creek and Hilltop, with 95 each in the last three years, followed by Cory-Merrill with 90 and University Park with 86.
“There are replacement homes quite out of place that are not in any way complementary nor harmonious with what’s here,” said Betty Naster, who moved to Hilltop in 1953.
Naster is part of a six-year effort to preserve the neighborhood by having a 34-square- block area designated a historic district.
Homeowners in West Highland spent two years and raised $7,000 – their share of a $29,000 preservation grant from the Colorado Historical Society – to make a case for a proposed historic district of houses dating from the 1890s to World War I.
The group must convince the Denver Landmark Commission at an Aug. 15 public hearing that their neighborhood qualifies under historical, architectural and geographic guidelines.
The City Council has final say in whether an area receives a historic designation.
Even as the group worked on the designation, an 1880s cottage and a house built in 1900 were knocked down to make way for duplex and triplex units, said Steve Kite, an organizer of the West Highland effort.
“We’re saying this 1905 middle-class Denver neighborhood is worth keeping around, and it’s nice to have that connection to the people who came before us,” Kite said. “This is the only tool we have.”
In Park Hill, where there have been 17 teardowns since 2003, 150 volunteers began a push for a historic district after a public “wake” by residents for an 88- year-old, $1 million home, said Elaine Gallagher Adams, a founding member of the Park Hill group.
The home is being replaced by two $1 million homes, Adams said.
“We have some very significant boulevards that have been discovered by developers who are tearing down houses and putting up McMansions,” she said.
“This might curb these guys who are doing wholesale destruction,” Adams said.
Realtors and homebuilders say scrape-offs are necessary urban renewal to rejuvenate the city and attract new residents.
Homeowners want the tree- lined streets, established parks and short commutes that urban neighborhoods offer.
They also want electrical outlets in their kitchens, says Kathy Saidy, a real-estate agent with Coldwell Banker.
“People want homes in which they can turn on the lights and the electric appliances at the same time, a bedroom big enough for a bed and a closet,” said Saidy, a member of the citizens’ advisory group to the Zoning Code Task Force.
J.J. Martinez, vice president of the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver, said: “We support the true intent of historic preservation, but we don’t support manipulating historic preservation just to prevent change in a community.”
The Zoning Code Task Force – composed of developers, elected officials, neighborhood representatives and preservationists – was created by the city to find tools to balance renewal with preservation.
“To characterize all demolitions as undesirable or having bad results doesn’t tell the story,” said City Planning Director Peter Park, who convened the task force.
“We have demolitions that set forth the natural evolution of how cities and neighborhoods grow and some demolitions in which there are reasons for concern,” Park said.
Alternative tools the task force is considering include:
Conservation districts in which scale, setback, height and mass limitations are placed on replacement homes.
Demolition waiting periods to see if a house qualifies for historic status.
Overlay zones, which add stricter standards and design requirements beyond the zoning requirements.
Conservation easements, which place restrictions on development of a property in exchange for a payment to the home owner.
Dallas is using overlay zones. Palo Alto, Calif., has imposed a teardown moratorium, and Austin, Texas, has used conservation districts.
“What Denver has now is a limited toolbox,” said Jim Lindberg, a task-force member and official with the Denver office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“Cities are becoming attractive to people again, and there’s a lot of interest in living and investing in the city,” Lindberg said. “A lot of people are hopeful there are win-win solutions.”
Staff writer Dave Curtin can be reached at 303-820-1276 or dcurtin@denverpost.com.
Public meetings
Public Zoning Code Task Force meetings will be Wednesday and Aug. 15-17.
Wednesday: 4 to 5:30 p.m., Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway, and 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Southwest Improvement Council Center, 1000 S. Lowell Blvd.
Aug. 15: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Johnson & Wales University, 7150 Montview Blvd.
Aug. 16: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Centura Senior Life Center, 1601 Lowell Blvd.
Aug. 17: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Police District 3 Substation, 1625 S. University Blvd.
