In attendance were: Leslie Lipstein, Eugene Keyser, Charles Brantigan, Jim Wiseman, Allison Billings, Dave Webster, Ted Freedman, Michael Henry, Tom Currigan, Steve LeMoine and Bethany Gravell.

The meeting was called to order at 5:30 p.m. The minutes were read and approved as written.

Steve LeMoine reports that there was a leveraged buyout of HCA. This is expected not to have any effect on local projects here or local management.

The D Building has been demolished. It is anticipated that the Inn will be demolished sometime in August.

Reporting for St. Joseph Hospital, Le Moine reports that they are a bit ahead of schedule and that they have again closed Gilpin Street.

Tom Currigan described the attempts to popularize their Farmers Market. They want to encourage healthy food consumption providing canvas bags. For $5.00, people can fill up the canvas bags. They are asked to fill out a questionnaire about the use of the contents of the bags. True to the new version of the Urban Design Plan, there has been a big effort to get the community involved.

San Rafael recently had a board meeting. The next board meeting will have to do with Hope Properties, selling the property to a proposed battered women’s shelter. It is difficult to get anything done in the neighborhood group arena over the summer.

The Chairman received messages that people from Uptown on the Hill would be attending the meeting, but they did not and no one knows the status of that organization.

The parking lot behind the Nursing Center is being used heavily at the present time as a parking lot, presumably by the visitors and staff of the nursing center. Since we have cracked down on Zion Church and their parking lot, perhaps it is time to again file a complaint against Mr. Burns and his parking lot.

The church has eliminated the chain link fences and is in the process of installing landscaping. It has been noted that this has led to much more prominent use of the parking lots for church functions, the previous chain link fence creating a "prison yard" feel.

The Urban Design Plan in its 70% version has been presented to the Planning Board. With exception of language concerning the view plane ordinance, the plan was met favorably by the Planning Board. It is being tempered presently to deal with "end users", i.e., Public Works, is pointing out that it is not accepting responsibility for anything, no matter what we put in the plan.

There has been a meeting with RTD. It has been suggested that the major employers work with an RTD survey process to look at the bus routes with the idea that if there is a documented need, changes could be made. A suggestion has been made that there needs to be a transportation demand management study. The usual paradox, however, is that RTD is reluctant to add bus routes unless there is a demand, and there won’t be any demand unless there is a bus route.

There is a public meeting on Thursday, July 27, at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center. All are encouraged to attend. There will also be a task force meeting next Monday at 7:00 a.m. Chris Glychner is going to take the plan to the Planning Board. Leslie Lipstein will continue to be involved, but as a private citizen.

Michael Henry described the process being made on the zoning code update. He called attention to public meetings to be held in mid August to consider the diagnostic report. The committee is struggling for tools to protect stable neighborhoods. They are planning to visit some of these neighborhoods in September. What has stable neighborhoods up in arms is that as the price per square foot of stable land gets higher, there are increasing numbers of scrape-offs and buildings that don’t match the neighborhood. Some neighborhoods have lost a quarter of their housing stock in this process. Of some concern is that if the price per foot of land in the Uptown Neighborhood gets much higher, then it will be cost effective to demolish some of the houses here. Ample notice it given to San Rafael to get their act together with either Landmark Designation and/or Overlay Zoning.

HDUDF MEETING MINUTES

Ted Freedman reports that the Denver Housing Authority is considering rezoning East Village to R-4-X or RMU-30. They are talking about a 12 story condo building on the south side of Park Avenue West. The group has asked that we invite someone from the Denver Housing Authority to describe the current status of the East Village project at our next meeting.

There is increasing concerning about pedestrian access to Downtown, and Broadway has become almost a barrier. We are to invite Kevin Magner, who apparently received all the letters that we wrote some months ago, and Mark Najarian who is overall in charge of transportation to ask the question at the next meeting, "How do we walk from here to Downtown at the present time, and what is being done to fix that problem?"

Allison Billings of Transportation Solutions then presented the work that her group is doing in the Cherry Creek area. They are trying to create and impetus for local transit systems and circulators in addition to the Fast Track Program. They are also interested in pedestrian activity of the itemized areas such as our concern over Broadway, where a major street is an impediment to pedestrian access. They also would like to support the use of more bicycles. They have managed to facilitate getting the Cherry Creek Shopping Area and Downtown to work collaboratively. They are expecting to have a draft document ready in the next couple of weeks, and the hope is build support from neighborhoods across the City to include some of these important connectivity and multi-modal access problems into the request for Bond funding. The Organization encouraged her activities and would like to participate.

There being no other candidates, Dr. Brantigan was again elected as Chairman of the Hospital District Urban Design Forum.

Charles O. Brantigan, MD

Chairman, Hospital District Urban Design Forum

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