It’s just a bunch of happy thought.
That’s how one Denverite accurately summed up the reality of the city’s micro-communities and the impacts it will have on surrounding neighborhoods.
Craig Arfsten successfully appealed the city’s zoning decision allowing the shed-like housing block for homeless folks in the Overland Park neighborhood.
But the victory is symbolic only, writes Colorado Politics.
Just because the city accepted a misleading summary of community meetings Mayor Johnston attended, and failed to follow the zoning code to offset the adverse effects of this project on the surrounding neighborhood, it will still get built.
From Colorado Politics:
Arfsten, whose group has urged officials to consider “the role that drugs and mental illness play into why someone remains chronically unsheltered,” said Denver needs to conduct another community meeting and take seriously the worries of surrounding residents.
He said the zoning administrator, before approving the city’s zoning request for the micro-community site, must ask one overarching question: What is the recourse for residents, he said, if a “meth addict takes off clothes in a park with kids?”
It’s so disappointing to read a headline declaring “Denver resident wins appeal of approval to build ‘micro-community,’” only to discover it’s going to be built no matter what.
Denver just has to spread more happy thoughts in yet another community meeting before the tractor-trailer trucks can offload the beds-in-a-shed.