West Highland in Denver is latest neighborhood rezone for granny flats

West Highland became the latest neighborhood in Denver where homeowners that want to build accessory dwelling units on their properties will no longer have to go through a long approval process to do so.

The City Council voted Monday night to allow those secondary housing units, sometimes called granny flats or mother-in-law apartments, as a use by right in the zoning code for the neighborhood.

The rezoning was sponsored by District 1 City Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval. It’s the fourth neighborhood in Sandoval’s northwest Denver district that has been rezoned for ADUs meaning nearly all residential properties there can now have the extra housing units if they want them.

“As northwest Denver has gentrified and displacement has occurred it is essential we allow this type of development,” to allow people to age in place, give homeowners a secondary source of income and provide more workforce rental housing, Sandoval said prior to council’s unanimous vote Monday. “We are bringing a type of missing middle housing into northwest Denver that is desperately needed and long overdue.”

The measure rezoned 3,265 properties previously set aside exclusively for single-family homes to now allow for the secondary residential structures provided the lot is a minimum of 3,000 square feet.

City planners received 45 written comments from people in the community supporting the rezoning and 10 from residents that opposed it. A survey circulated between late December and the first day of May generated 584 responses. Of those, 420 supported the rezoning while 131 said No and 33 were undecided.

Concerns voiced by people who did not support the rezoning included what the future new housing units would mean for parking.

“I hear a lot of talk about making Denver a more pedestrian-friendly city, and creating more street parking needs in an already high-density neighborhood, doesn’t seem to fit that goal,” neighborhood resident Holly Murtaugh wrote in an email in August. “As I’m sure you know, the less visibility on the street, the greater risk to pedestrians and bikers.”

Monday night’s public hearing was disrupted by technical issues. The council could not hear speakers on Zoom in the chambers and 10 people who signed up were not able to comment. Only one person indicated they had signed up to speak against the rezoning.

Eric Rymarz, chair of the West Highland Neighborhood Association’s land use and planning committee, came to the City Council chambers in person to support the rezoning. He said the main concern he has heard from neighbors is what a burden it would be to individually rezone their properties for ADUs if the blanket measure did not pass.

“We believe ADUs add value to the neighborhood,” Rymarz said. “Hopefully, it results in fewer people moving out of the neighborhood due to the size limitations of their houses …”

West Highland becomes at least the eighth Denver neighborhood with blanket ADU zoning.

The city planning department launched a project this year aimed at assessing the barriers to and benefits of bringing more accessory housing units into the city. That project is expected to generate a list of proposed code changes that could be before the council for approval sometime next year, officials said.

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