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Southwest Area Plan Full Public Review Draft

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Read and comment on the public review draft of the Southwest Area Plan, covering Athmar Park, Mar Lee, Overland, Ruby Hill, and Westwood. You can click directly on the document to comment and/or go to the overview to take a survey.

Visit the project page for additional ways to get involved.

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Suggestion
Preserve affordable units in the communities as well.
Suggestion
It makes no sense to me to have an industrial and warehousing zoning immediately next to a lovely park. This location is close to light rail and simply by driving by is underutilized. This should be home to many families.
Suggestion
This bike lane requires walking up and down a set of stairs to use it. The reality is that safest way to cross on bike east west is over Evans. Anyone with an e-bike basically cannot use the iowa underpass. Its dangerous to bike east to west and this issue has not been addressed.
Suggestion
This underpass is not acceptable. Its essentially a concrete tube without any lighting. The sand on one end makes it physically dangerous to commute. My friend got badly bruised when biking through it. The lack of lighting makes it even more unsafe. It honestly scary during the day. Doubly so at night.
Suggestion
Hello, I just submitted a comment a few minutes ago and realize that I highlighted the importance of zoning being flexible, creative, and innovative. I should have also highlighted these values as they relate to building codes. Of course prioritized along with the primary objective of safety in this case.
Suggestion
First of all, thank you for the thorough job gathering neighborhood input and reflecting it in a comprehensive area plan. Bravo.
My first impression: consistent with what I heard in these neighborhood meetings, the overarching values of preservation, access, support, and development rise to the top. As it should be.
What I also heard in these community gatherings is the importance of flexibility, creativity, and innovation. These values, applied to both problem-solving and building things anew, are critical for unfolding this vision for the southwest area. They also happen to be the most difficult for large, established organizations like long-term industry and city government to fully embrace.
As a result, I would hope they can be featured more prominently.
For example, how does prioritizing flexibility, creativity, and innovation affect a 20-year approach to solving a problem already identified in the plan, say specifically affordable housing? First of all, it's the realization that we may need completely new tools for approaching the problem, since we've not been able to do it with the tools we possess now. For example, considering the possibility for new zoning categories, incentives, and programs for live-work, tiny home, housing-industrial combo with suggested/supported complimentary uses, incremental development, missing middle, small developer, community-driven development, and supportive housing that mixes populations that are in a position to materially help one another (i.e. seniors and foster kids, just one example).
It is nearly impossible to create these things today, because other typologies are more familiar and as a result seem less trouble, less risky, and are therefore naturally favored by government and industry.
For example, using predominantly time-worn, go-to affordable housing tools perpetuates the problem of affordable housing that isn't durable (i.e. use of 15-year tax credits) nor does it match the breadth of real needs (i.e. of dearth of 3 bedroom units for large families). Ground floor retail often fails because housing developers are not in the business of creating, understanding, or managing the real estate requirements of business, specifically small and local ones.
This is just a small subset of already identified city-wide problems, ones that put a wrench in the goals we are trying to accomplish with this plan.
The upshot with affordable housing is that we build the 5 over 2 platform building without design or use thought/guidelines over and over because we know how to do it. But that doesn't mean we should.
Can the southwest area be a pilot place where we come up with new ways to solve intransigent problems like (but not restricted to) affordable housing? A place where we can expressly try new things and do better? Can we put this goal front and center?
Already the neighborhood engagement has taken place in a way that is flexible, creative and innovative; this draft plan is a clear demonstration that this approach yields dividends.
Let's continue the new tradition.
Suggestion
Denison Montessori is near a dangerous and busy intersection, S. Sheridan and W. Jewell. I am a parent of a small child who attends Denison. We live a block away and we have been asking for a blinking traffic light to slow traffic and provide for safer street crossings for children. The traffic is noisy and the speed limit is seldom followed, even during school hours. I hope our area of W. Jewell from S. Yates to S. Sheridan is taken seriously in this plan.
in reply to Hamilton R.'s comment
Suggestion
Yes, definitely a lot of (racing) noise/people ignoring pedestrians. It would be nice if they could prioritize traffic going over Mississippi vs Florida.
in reply to Anon's comment
Suggestion
Yeah, I agree. Capping new buildings to 3-5 stories would help manage the rate of change for the currently majority single family detached homes. Ideally, in order to help create safe and welcoming streets, someone on a balcony should be able to shout down to someone on the street.
Suggestion
I don't know if we've turned our backs to the river, it's more like the railroads and industrialists beat the rest of us to using it and polluted it so we couldn't make the most of it.
Question
Does this section need to be re-written given the state of national politics?
Question
Is there any way to reclaim Federal Blvd back from CDOT? I don't think we need a highway running through our backyard and it constantly puts our local interests as people living here against CDOT car-first mentality.
Suggestion
I know the official boundary of the neighborhood is Jewell, but the functional boundary of the neighborhood is actually Evans. I just want to point it out because I think missing that limits the conversation about our neighborhood. For example, you wouldn't know it by this map, but there's a King Soopers literally 5 minutes drive for anyone living south of Florida.
Suggestion
The roads are also really wide for the traffic volume, which encourages lots of speeding in the neighborhood.
in reply to Nathan's comment
Suggestion
If we're talking about safety, I think we'd be better of spending money on housing and community services than giving the cops another building to do nothing in.
Question
Will the final draft have higher quality maps here?
Suggestion
General Comment - In order to mitigate negative climate change and safety issues with high density structures that often retain heat and obstruct views, recommend they be set back with surrounding trees. Setbacks also allow for safer streets with clearer views for and of the vehicles entering and existing the complex and allow the sun to help melt ice and snow off the streets.
Suggestion
Garfield Lake Park has seen an uptick in motorbike and ATV use over the last few years, which are prohibited at city parks because they are unsafe and disruptive to wildlife. The installation of bollards on the paved entryways to the park (e.g., Newton & Louisiana, Lowell & Louisiana, Arizona & Lowell, King, and the five separate entryways via Mississippi), along with signage, could deter further usage.
in reply to Emma Hand's comment
Suggestion
Regarding the additional information listed for the neighborhoods. I dont see any context around the bullet points?
Question
What is this referring to?
Suggestion
Same here drop shadows not needed
Suggestion
None of the other labels on graphics use drop shadows. I would remove these here they make it more difficult to see the map
in reply to Matt's comment
Suggestion
Agreed! Look into color palettes for visually impaired and ADA compliance for text contrast. A lot of the graphics are too low resolution to read as well. link
Suggestion
Currently looking to move to Ruby and would love to still be able to comfortably bike to downtown for work.
in reply to Kevin Dickson's comment
Lack of ridership could be due to the lack of safe and comfortable bike infrastructure. Many people I hear from greatly desire this bike and pedestrian connectivity.
in reply to Connor Shea's comment
Upzone the entire city at the same time.
in reply to Connor Shea's comment
Not to mention that good, reliable public transportation needs population to support it - the transit will be more likely to fail if there are not people there to ride it when it comes, or if there is not the tax base to support the infrastructure.
Suggestion
I strongly support installing and updating shelters at bus stops. Denver UV is very intense, and cover from the rain will make public transit more appealing for more people. Stop #13884 (Westbound Federal&Florida), for example, has no surrounding tree or architectural coverage.
Question
Any talk about advancing Local or Regional BRT for Evans? I know most of it isn't technically in "Southwest" Denver, but for those of us south of Florida in Ruby Hill or Mar Lee, it's the only major East/West bus line within a reasonable walk.
Suggestion
This intersection blows, no matter if you're a car or a bike. Could we get a roundabout here or something?
Question
Could we get a bridge here, connecting Ruby Hill via S Platte River Dr with the S Platte River Trail?
Suggestion
Another thought. It might just be better to take the time and money that would be spent remediating Evans for pedestrians and just put it towards the pedestrian only crossings projects at Jewel & Illif instead. I don't know if you'll be able to put lipstick on the pig that is the Evans Ave bridge without a major tear down and rebuild.
Suggestion
An easy way to increase pedestrian safety and comfort would be to remove the slip lanes for drivers exiting from Santa Fe Drive onto Evans and forbidding drivers to turn right on red. Almost every other time I have to cross the bridge on bike, I've been unable to cross with a walk signal, because I'm unsure if a driver will see me because they are only for checking for oncoming automobile traffic & not watching out for pedestrians.
Suggestion
For what it is worth, I think making the connection at W Gill Pl would be the nicer of the two options.
Suggestion
A great way to add greenery, reduce the danger of collisions, and lower traffic speed through the neighborhoods would be to replace many of the 2 and 4 ways stops with roundabouts, like the city has already done in the Speer & West Wash Park neighborhoods.
Suggestion
An easy way to do this would simply be to change the sidewalk width standards from dictating widening cutting in towards properties and instead have them widen out into the automobile right of way. The roads are too wide and encourage speeding, so when widening sidewalks, we could create a road diet at the same time!
Suggestion
I love providing separated space for pedestrians & cyclists, and I would also like to see more bridges in Denver include little jut outs for people to safely step out of the main path of a bridge and stop to look at phones or watch the river, trains, traffic, wildlife, etc.

For example, see the bridge over Bear Creek on the Bear Creek Trail @ 39°39'47.9"N 105°06'10.9"W
Suggestion
As far as amenities along the Platte River trail either plant more trees in the sunny spots or add shade structures with water fountains. Also, please keep the trail natural, since there are numerous restaurants and/or coffee shops close to the trail with easy access for a bite and/or a refreshing drink.
in reply to Connor Shea's comment
Suggestion
100%
Suggestion
Also extending existing bike infrastructure should be prioritized. There are many places where the infrastructure just needs to be extended to be useful.
Suggestion
Access to healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant food should be a key element of a complete neighborhood
Suggestion
Can we add something here about keeping or preserving the structure of any historic or culturally relevant institutional buildings like churches or schools and even offer supports to help keep those buildings from falling into such a state of disrepair that they end up being demolished in the end. I can think of a few institutional buildings that could fit that description and it is a shame to see them stay vacant/underused and slowly rot away without any intervention.
Suggestion
This is great, I think we really need to focus on not displacing businesses just as much as not displacing residents.
Suggestion
YES, let's focus on accommodating innovative and needed options for multi-generational families and co-housing. But let's allow that in single family as well as multi-family housing. This is saying multi-unit and maybe that covers it, but I would like to be explicit that multi-generational and co-housing options can be thoughtfully done in single family areas as well. Back to that missing middle housing, let's not pidgeon hole anything.
627 S Lipan rezone miss by city council could have added diversity to Athmar Park
opportunity lost when city council votes no at 627 S Lipan St for 25 attainably priced townhomes on a lot that is vacant.
so the desire is to depress values to keep taxes low, there are far better ways to do this! This note in the plan is silly!
Love the comments for missing middle here. Please note city council just denied exactly this at 627 S Lipan in April 2025. Make those voices loud when you support missing middle and make sure your RNO is aware as well.
Suggestion
YES, continue to provide ADUs and Tandem houses.
Suggestion
YES, and we need to continue to maintain the existing parks along the river as well. Not just build them and then let the canals get filled with mud and weeds and let it get into disrepair. The parks along the river (Pasquinel's, Grant Frontier, Overland Pond) are often neglected and do not see the type of maintenance that other parks do. Would love to see more activation of those spaces too.