Fraud: In September, the Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment’s estimated that three out of every four claims it received between July 18 and August 22 were fraudulent.
More Coloradans are opening their mailboxes to find US Bank ReliaCards or 1099-Gs that they don’t need, a sign that someone fraudulently used their name to file for unemployment.
In recent weeks, a freelance graphic designer and the CEO of a local aerospace company told Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle that they were both victims of fraud. Luckily for them, the claims are amounting to an inconvenience. But, for many Coloradans waiting for or already receiving unemployment benefits, these fraudulent claims are wreaking havoc as tax season arrives.
Unemployment benefits are taxed as income, meaning taxpayers pay both state and federal taxes on the benefits. For fraud victims, this can result in paying multiple thousands of dollars in extra taxes while someone else reaps the benefits.
The freelance graphic designer described the hours of phone calls she’s made to both local and federal authorities concerning the fraud. Each time, she’s been met with the same response: “We might contact you with further questions.”
For the past month, it has been an exercise in futility to get someone to assist with the claim, or to even hear a human voice on the other end of the phone, she added.
“I truly can’t imagine what’s it would be like if I really needed these benefits,” she told the Chronicle.
What Happened?
On January 11, Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) upgraded its unemployment software system to the MyUI+, whic
h combines regular state unemployment benefits with the PUA Online System used by claimants receiving federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).
The goal of the upgrade is to streamline responses to PUA claims, customers requesting payment via the phone line (CUBline), and providing virtual assistance, CDLE said during the launch.
Initially, when the system went online, it immediately flagged 20% of claims as fraud, prompting the state to seek guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor. In response, CDLE revised down a month of unemployment claims, revealing a batch of 31,237 fraudulent claims. CDLE said that a majority of the fraud is coming from overseas.
“When we deployed the new system Sunday morning at 6:30, we watched,” Cher Haavind, deputy director of the state Department of Labor, said in a statement. “We were all on a dashboard and we could see where people were hitting the system. They were coming from outside of the United States. They were coming from Nigeria. And they were, within five minutes of deploying the system, trying to access MyUI+.”
In December, USA Today published an exposé of a Nigerian engineer who paid $2 in Bitcoin to access a database of stolen Social Security Numbers and other personal information. In many states, that’s all the information one needs to start a claim. Websites such as FamilyTreeNow and TruthFinder offer additional information for a fee.
Others gained personal information through phishing expeditions. CDLE found a fake Twitter account under the handle @LaborColorado that was distributing an online form purporting to help Coloradans apply for unemployment. CDLE’s official Twitter handle is @ColoradoLabor.
Feeding Frenzy
CDLE said its unemployment software was due for an upgrade before the pandemic hit. Colorado’s system was running on a decades-old coding language known as COBOL. At least 12 other states run on similar aging language, including Alaska, Connecticut, California, Iowa, Kansas, and Rhode Island.
However, CDLE’s upgrade was delayed once the agency began receiving record numbers of claims during the spring. In 2019, CDLE handled nearly an average of 2,000 unemployment claims per week. Since mid-March, the agency has handled an average of 17,500 claims per week.
Meanwhile, a rapid update of the Colorado’s unemployment processes created layers of vulnerability within the system that officials are struggling to control. Governor Jared Polis added to the frenzy in March when he signed Executive Order D 2020 012, which requires the state labor office to begin paying claims within 10 days of receipt.
Once state officials began tracking fraud claims in June, they were left to navigate making timely payments, ensuring the security of their operating system, and rushing to find fluent coders to complete the upgrade.
Employers made mistakes, too. CDLE said employers are supposed to file a fraud report whenever an employee files for unemployment. But, if the employer checks “other” on the form, state labor officials assume the claim is from a job separation. In this case, the state is supposed to hold payment pending resolution. Polis’ 10-day order changed all that.
How Big Is The Impact?
State systems are not the only weak spot, CDLE contends. Another suspect is the federal PUA program, which expired at the end of December.
PUA was intended to help freelancers, gig workers, and others who lost their jobs because of the pandemic and don’t qualify for regular unemployment. The program provided $600 per week in benefits. However, the hasty rollout of the program made it a target for hackers and scammers.
Under PUA’s guidelines, state and local labor officials are responsible for administering the program. However, Colorado is currently not distributing PUA payments until it can secure its system. This means Coloradans relying on federal unemployment may go months without receiving payment.
Meanwhile, unemployment officers are still struggling to handle the increased workloads caused by the pandemic. An investigation by Colorado Public Radio found CDLE’s current wait time is over six weeks. As of mid-December, over 12,000 callback or appointment requests were in the queue. CDLE even began hiring customer service help from third-party staffing agencies in December, but the agency’s backlog seems endless.
Surprise Cards: Coloradans are opening their mailboxes to find US Bank ReliaCards or 1099-Gs that they don’t need, a sign that someone fraudulently used their name to file for unemployment.
Since mid-March, CDLE has paid out $2.5 billion in PUA claims and another $2.5 billion in regular unemployment insurance, according to CDLE data.
In September, CDLE estimated that three out of every four claims it received between July 18 and August 22 were fraudulent. Colorado officials were able to stop between $750 million and $1 billion leaving state coffers. Other states haven’t been so lucky.
In August, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania charged 33 individuals, including inmates at eight state and county jails and prisons in western Pennsylvania and their accomplices, with defrauding the PUA system of over $100 million total.
Later in December, U.S. Attorneys in California recovered another $2 million from a single actor. The scammer used the identity of a sitting U.S. Senator to file the claims.
Stopping The Gap
CDLE received updates rules from the U.S. Department of Labor concerning the administration of the PUA program on January 8. The new guidance reopened the program, reduced payments to $300 per week, and extended the eligible weeks of unemployment up to March 14, 2021.
Shortly thereafter, DOL officials released $100 million to states to shore up their unemployment systems and help them detect fraud.
Colorado spent a portion of the funds on a new partnership with ID.me, a biometrics company that will help the state verify unemployment claims so it can begin processing payments. Labor department Executive Director Joe Barela said the system will be used to verify the legitimacy of claims held up by weeks or months after being flagged as potentially fraudulent.
All new claims must perform identity verification through ID.me, with payouts released following a verification with facial recognition. The process is expected to be completed by January 27.
According to the company’s website, ID.me is currently used by over 22 million people and 350 partners, including federal and state agencies, health care organizations and financial institutions. It’s also in 14 other states, including Pennsylvania and California.
For Barela, the new funds and tools are a welcomed gift. However, they don’t mean Colorado is in the clear just yet.
“It’s important to note that we are walking a tightrope here,” Barela said in a statement. “We know that we want to get benefits out as quickly as possible to those who need unemployment insurance at this time. But we also want to put systems in place that protect our funds or benefits from going out the door to fraudulent claims.”
Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor (OIM) released a long-awaited report on the actions of Denver police officers during the first five days of the George Floyd Protests, saying the officers’ lack of communication, excessive force, and scant documentation are “extremely troubling.”
The report specifically addresses several gaps in the Denver Police Department’s (DPD) use of force policy, crowd control measures, and less-than lethal weapons policies which “could have played a role in command review of force while events were unfolding.”
In all, OIM made 16 recommendations, including updating DPD’s crowd control policies to track which officers are assigned the duty, issuing multiple dispersal orders before using force, and disallowing the use of rubber-ball grenades.
DPD did not respond to request for comment from the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle.
Monitor Nick Mitchell said the recommendations are the result of a six-month investigation that considered both the unprecedented size of the crowds and the injuries suffered by both law enforcement officer and community members.
“Welcoming this level of scrutiny is not easy, and it demonstrates a strong commitment to public safety and building community trust,” he wrote in a letter presenting the report’s findings to City Council, the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Public Safety, and the Citizen Oversight Board.
“DPD officer and command staff demonstrated a similar commitment by responding thoroughly to our extensive document requests, and volunteering to participate in interviews,” Mitchell said.
Documentation And Policy Gaps
Between June and November, OIM reviewed DPD policies as well as over 200 hours of video and audio recordings and 25 hours of video recordings from DPD’s helicopter. The OIM team then compared their findings with academic literature on law enforcement best practices.
However, several encumbrances arose during OIM’s investigation, according to Mitchell. A prime example is DPD’s after-action reports — which are supposed to be filed every time an officer uses force — were often vague and documented only a fraction of the incidents.
Department policy requires police officers to file timely Use of Force Reports that include a description of the incident and a detailed recounting of the officer’s observations and actions. However, the agency’s crowd control manual is silent on these matters, which could have led to the delayed and vague incident reports OIM reviewed. Many officers did not fill out reports until 12 days after a use of force incident occurred, the investigation found.
A “footage gap” also arose during the investigation because gaps in DPD’s body-worn camera (BWC) policy resulted in several officers failing to record footage during the protest. DPD policies state BWCs must be activated by officers during “any encounter that becomes adversarial.” This practice is meant to shield officers from false accusations of excessive force.
OIM was able to identify over 150 officers who were assigned to the protests from a roster created on June 1, the only roster received from DPD. Of this total, only 38 officers produced BWC video files.
That same day, DPD officers made 124 arrests for curfew violations, carrying a concealed weapon, burglary, and felony menacing, among other charges. Department policy notes the core purpose of the BWC policy is “to capture crimes in-progress” and that “all arrests/citations” must be recorded. DPD did not provide OIM with a reason why these 124 arrests were not recorded.
Similar comparisons for the other four days the report covers were difficult because DPD did not record the number of officers assigned to the protest. DPD estimated between 150-200 officers worked the protect on May 30, but when OIM asked to see the BWC footage, it only produced videos from 75 officers.
Lawmakers addressed this issue when they passed SB217, also known as the “Law Enforcement Integrity Act” on June 10. The bill requires officers to record all interactions with the public and the footage of which may be available to the public within 21 days of the incident. Officers may also be decertified for failing to produce BWC footage in court.
Denver City Council finalized the purchase of new BWCs that automatically begin recording when an officer draws their firearm on December 7.
Use Of Force Against Protesters
OIM also said DPD inconsistently documented its crowd dispersal orders and less-than lethal munition deployments. The Department could not assess the total number of munitions deployed during the protests even though it produced a pre-protest inventory of its less-lethal munitions. Instead, OIM found that DPD asked the Aurora and Englewood police departments for supplies before spending $202,431.50 on munitions. The Colorado State Patrol even flew a plane to Wyoming to pick up the munitions.
Some officers who deployed these munitions were not certified to do so, OIM found. DPD certifies officers to use pepper ball and 40mm rubber bullet launchers through a four-hour training course. However, OIM discovered reports from officers who claimed to receive training when they arrived to work the protests given the emergency at hand.
One potential reason for the documentation gaps, according to the report, is that DPD officers reacted to the protest emotionally rather than professionally. The report cites a 2018 study published in the Journal of Social Movement Studies that concludes “police tend to respond to demonstrations about police brutality more aggressively than to protests with other messages.”
“The challenges presented by policing mass protests are magnified exponentially when the demonstrations concern police conduct itself. Police must still balance First amendment guarantees with the need to protect life and property, but they must do so under sustained criticism from protest participants,” OIM’s 94-page document reads.
The report also mentions “sustained criticism” of DPD officers may have accelerated the use of force against George Floyd protesters. Given the caustic nature of the protest, OIM said DPD should have instituted tighter internal controls over its use of force policy and added stricter reporting requirements but failed to do so.
“When a protest is about the police, officers may be insulted, threatened, or even targeted with thrown projectiles or other improvised weapons,” the report reads. “This behavior will naturally provoke a more forceful response from the police.”
Mutual Aid
While DPD was the main respondent to the protests, 18 other law enforcement agencies provided mutual aid. They include local police departments from Arvada, Thornton, and Westminster as well as the US Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Colorado Rangers.
Mutual aid is common in police work. Departments regularly sign agreements with each other outlining the scope of the aid to be provided and the resistance thresholds to abide by. However, several of the responding departments neither negotiated nor signed mutual aid agreements with DPD prior to the protests.
Without an aid agreement in place, assisting officers were required to follow their own department’s use of force policies rather than DPD’s policy. Many of the assisting agencies had less restrictive policies than DPD, which “may have impacted the kinds of force used by officers and in what amounts,” the report reads.
This created a situation where assisting departments had varying levels of involvement. Some were tasked with crowd control while others were asked to manage traffic. Meanwhile, several agencies fired less-than lethal munitions at protesters, resulting in several complaints for excessive force against DPD. Internal investigations that determined complaints to be about assisting officers were rerouted to the appropriate agency.
During interviews, DPD officers expressed concerns about requiring mutual aid officers to follow DPD’s use of force policy because other officers are trained under different policies. OIM said the concern is understandable but can be overcome through joint periodic training and proactively negotiating mutual aid agreements.
Going Forward
OIM stopped short of sweepingly rebuking the department. However, it said DPD’s actions signaled it was caught off guard by the protests. Even so, the agency commended the leadership of Police Chief Paul Pazen and Executive Director of Safety Murphy Robinson for their commitment to reform and rebuilding community trust.
“We have full confidence in their commitment to learning from these events and making the changes necessary to prevent similar outcomes in the future,” the report concludes.
However, some community members aren’t sold on the OIM’s rosy outlook. The Citizen Oversight board, which is tasked with reviewing DPD’s disciplinary and use of force policies, said “law enforcement or the preservation of order should ever come at the expense of transparency or accountability.”
“These are military grade munitions being used against citizens expressing their First Amendment rights,” Al Gardner, COB Chair, said in a statement. “The OIM’s report raises important questions about what is appropriate use of force in response to protests and demands a closer look at what institutional accountability should look like in these circumstances.”
A record number of minimum-wage workers at Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) received $130,442 in back pay for lost wages after a Denver Labor investigation found the university unintentionally misclassified the employees.
MSU: A record number of minimum-wage workers at Metropolitan State University of Denver received $130,442 in back pay for lost wages after a Denver Labor investigation found the university unintentionally misclassified the employees.
849 employees received the restitution on October 30, 2020. Many of the employees impacted were students working part-time in admissions, student orientation, and student activities departments.
The restitution came out of MSU’s reserve fund, according to the university’s finance department, and covers lost wages dating back to the beginning of the year.
Denver Labor began its investigation in March after a MSU employee submitted a claim to its office. During the investigation, the agency obtained payroll records showing several MSU employees were paid the state minimum wage of $12 per hour instead of Denver’s bottom wage of $12.85.
“Initially, the university’s officials incorrectly believed they were exempt from the citywide minimum wage law because they were state of Colorado employees,” the investigation report reads. “However, the city ordinance clearly says all work performed within the geographical boundaries of the City and County of Denver is covered by the minimum wage requirements.”
Scheduled increases of the minimum wage will push it up to $14.77 per hour next year, and then to $15.87 in 2022. These “unfunded mandates,” as MSU’s Associate Vice President for Administration/CFO George Middlemist describes them, put a strain on the institution’s resources, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A combination of declining enrollment rates and state funding cuts caused MSU to lose $16 million in funding for the 2020-2021 school year. Middlemist said the institution already holds Colorado’s lowest per pupil funding rate, and the cuts make it harder for MSU to operate.
CFO: Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Associate Vice President for Administration/CFO George Middlemist believes the minimum wage increase will put a strain on the institution’s resources, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Middlemist said the amount of backpay added to each employee’s October 30 paycheck was modest but is “certainly an important amount for them as we all struggle during this crisis.”
“We went into this knowing we wanted to do right by our employees and our students,” Middlemist told the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in an interview. “The amount we paid in backpay is small compared to future impacts, however. We anticipate a $2-to-$3 million impact in the coming years.”
Denver Labor said it worked with MSU “to find a way to pay workers the money they were owed according to the law, while striving for the least negative impact to the institution in these difficult economic times.”
“This is the single largest number of underpaid employees we’ve ever uncovered in a wage investigation,” City Auditor Timothy O’Brien said in a statement. “These 849 employees are also students and getting them these funds while they may be facing other economic hardships or student loans is a real win.”
In September, MSU’s board of trustees voted unanimously to increase tuition starting in the spring of 2021 to combat declining enrollment rates. Since 2011, MSU’s enrollment rate has remained relatively flat. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, enrollment dropped 6.2%, amounting to about $17 million in lost revenue, according to a report by the university’s student newspaper.
While the tuition is separate from the labor issue, according to Middlemist, the 3% increase for resident and nonresident students translates to an increase of $8 per credit hour for resident students and $25 for nonresidents. Overall tuition will increase $108 for resident students, while nonresident students will see an increase of $337.
MSU plans to redirect $680,000 of its tuition revenue to increase financial aid for students, the university said in a press release. It is also working to leverage CARES Act funding and develop a program to reduce student textbook and material costs.
“Trustees and University leaders struggled to balance the financial impact on students at this challenging time with the long-term financial health and sustainability of the University,” MSU President Janine Davidson said in a statement. “The decision was also not made quickly but is the result of months of research and discussion by the Budget Recommendation Committee, including representation from students.”
Denver Labor is a division of the City Auditor’s Office that “promotes lawful employment and wage compliance while providing exceptional labor, wage, and hourly enforcement,” according to its website.
As of October 2020, the division has recouped $831,000 in unpaid wages, eclipsing its previous high of $701,787 in 2016. Last year, the division recouped $678,559 in unpaid wages, and just $265,423 in 2018.
“The goal is to get money to workers according to the law, not to punish employers for an honest mistake,” O’Brien said. “Our office frequently works to find solutions that will bring employers into compliance without putting them out of business.”
While county jails across the country were restricting inmate phone calls, video chats with family members, and in-person visits because of COVID-19, staff at the Denver County Jail found new ways to keep their inmates connected to their systems of support.
Remote Visits: Remote visit capabilities for inmates were expanded to seven days per week.
Relying on mobile hotspots for Wi-Fi, jail staff allowed inmates to use laptops and tablets to converse with their support system outside the jail, at times for free or at a reduced rate.
Funding for the program came from a $340,000 grant from the Caring for Colorado Foundation and Denver City Council, which approved the purchase of additional video and phone monitoring software from Securus Technology, LLC, less than one month after Mayor Hancock issued his public health emergency declaration in March.
Major Rick Guerrero, who oversees operations of the county jail, credits the decision to decrease the inmate population and the facilities’ sanitation protocols were the keys to successfully implementing this program.
“We are very sensitive to the needs of our community and those in our care, especially in uncertain times like during the pandemic,” he told the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in an interview. “That’s why it was so important for us to build strong bridges and make sure inmates didn’t lose their ability to connect with the outside world.”
A report authored by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) in September found the pandemic caused detention facilities in several states to restrict inmate communication programs like free phone and video calls and family visits.
“The stress of the pandemic means that most families need more communication than normal,” the report reads. “People with friends or family behind bars need to stay up to date on their loved ones’ health and provide emotional support, especially given that chronic illnesses that make people vulnerable to the virus are more common behind bars.”
Fully Operational: The phone lines at Denver’s Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center remained in operation from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, even when the jail experienced its most serious COVID outbreaks over the summer.
Carrie Stanley, DSD’s program director, added another layer to this analysis, describing the responses as counterproductive and especially harmful to inmates with mental health or substance abuse issues facing strenuous reentry programs.
“People are worried about what was happening in the community, about how to connect with people over the internet versus going into their offices,” she told the Chronicle. “Successful reentry programs rely on keeping inmates in connection with positive support systems.”
Phone Calls
The report found county jails in states like Alaska, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, that had completely ended phone calls for their inmates.
Meanwhile the phone lines at Denver’s Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center remained in operation from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, even when the jail experienced its most serious COVID outbreaks over the summer.
Inmates placed in administrative segregation were allowed the same communication privileges as inmates in general population.
Guerrero says the lower inmate counts allowed county jail staff to closely ensure inmates practiced social distancing at the phones. Inmates and staff also split responsibility for cleaning the phones three to four times per day.
However, increased supervision was not the only cost borne by connecting inmates with their support systems. PPI’s report found that “one in three families with an incarcerated loved one go into debt paying for phone calls and visits, and half struggle to pay for basic housing and food needs.”
Securus charges a fee per minute usage to inmates who call their families via telephone or video service. The average cost of a 15-minute call in Colorado is $14.85, well above the national average cost of $5.74, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
In Denver, phone calls cost $.08 per minute and $9 for a 30-minute video call.
“In-person” Visits
It’s been 15 years since inmates in Denver County Jail could hug their loved ones during visits. Instead, visitors come to the jail lobby to use a phone and video system that connects to the housing units.
Report: A report by the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) found the pandemic caused detention facilities in several states to restrict inmate communication programs like free phone and video calls and family visits.
Under normal circumstances, these visits are 30 minutes long and are only allowed from Friday to Sunday between 12 and 8 p.m. Visits at the Downtown Detention Center are similarly restricted.
Once the pandemic hit in late March, DSD restricted visitor access to their lobby and increased inmate visitations to 7 days per week, thereby creating a need to expand their remote visit capabilities.
Securus provided DSD with coupons for free virtual visits so families without computers can still visit with inmates. Between April and June, DSD gave out 450 coupons, according to Stanley.
Securus also provided compassion credits to inmates with family members who were ill or who had passed for free video calls.
“The people in our care often don’t have access to their family members for most of the time they’re here,” Stanley said. “In terms of the pandemic, we saw an increase in inmate family members who got sick or passed.”
To help inmates grieve, DSD individualized its chaplain services. Before the pandemic, as many as 20 inmates could see the Chaplain at the same time. Now, DSD only allows eight in a room together and has suspended all volunteer religious providers.
Kites And Staff Communications
Inmates don’t just communicate with people outside detention facilities. In Denver, inmates use a color-coded kite system to communicate their needs with jail staff. Inmates submit a yellow kite to communicate a problem with staff and a green kite for health services requests, according to the inmate handbook.
Kites are sent to responsive departments depending on the request. For example, all kites concerning communications with the phones or video chat lines are directed to the Accounting Department.
Stanley said the jail maintained enough staff to process kite requests, and improved their efficiency in many cases.
“Our people were keenly aware of the need for communication. There’s really a lot of compassion on this team,” she said. “We know this pandemic has increased anxiety for many people in our care, so we had to increase our efforts.”
Stanley and her team also addressed inmate anxieties by increasing their rounds in the housing units from once a month to once per week. This allowed program staff to take a more personalized approach to their jobs, and gave inmates more chances to ask program staff about reentry programs, lining up a safe home, and other means of survival outside of jail.
“The pandemic has really taught us that people respond better if you focus on them as an individual rather than as a group or housing unit,” Stanley said.
In October, city council adopted the East Central Area Plan (ECAP), a land use policy document authored by Community Planning and Development (CPD) that is meant to guide growth in the Capitol Hill, North Capitol Hill, Cheesman Park, Congress Park, City Park, and City Park West neighborhoods over the next 20 years.
ECAP: The East Central Area Plan is meant to guide growth in the Capitol Hill, North Capitol Hill, Cheesman Park, Congress Park, City Park, and City Park West neighborhoods over the next 20 years.
The area is comprised of more than 32,000 housing units, most of which are occupied by young renters, and runs between Broadway and Colorado Ave., from 7th Ave. up north to 23rd Ave.
And while the plan is supported by several neighborhood organizations, many residents feel left out, saying the plan doesn’t represent the needs their communities.
“We have serious concerns this plan was put together with a predetermined outcome in mind,” Jesse Morreale, president of the 7th Ave. Neighborhood Association (7ANA), told city council. “To us, this plan represents the city directing its agencies in ways that will harm our neighborhood.”
The plan makes six priority recommendations: strengthen the local economy through job training, increase affordable housing, improve services for people experiencing homelessness, make streets safer, expand historic preservation, and reduce carbon pollution.
District 9 representative Candi CdeBaca questioned the ability of the plan to accomplish the goals it sets out to accomplish.
Questioning: District 9 representative Candi CdeBaca questioned the ability of the plan to accomplish the goals it sets out to accomplish.
“We have multiple plans across the city that try to address the inequities in Denver’s zoning code, but when it comes to rezoning, our plans don’t come with any guarantee to achieve our goals, and they’re not yielding any results,” she said.
Left Out
Morreale and volunteer 7ANA board member Mark Spear both claimed CPD left their neighborhood in the dark about ECAP, even though the plan recommends several consequential changes for the area.
The 7th Ave. corridor is one of many streets classified as a transformative opportunity, a designation representing a need for increased multi-modal transportation in the area. Some ideas mentioned in the plan include building buffered bike lanes and other traffic calming designs that increase safety for pedestrians.
Morreale says these changes will increase density and property values in the area and thereby push out a lot of cost-burdened residents.
Concerned: Jesse Morreale, president of the 7th Ave. Neighborhood Association, has concerns the East Central Area Plan was put together with a predetermined outcome in mind.
“It’s amazing to me that city council would try to pass a plan of this magnitude without consulting all the people it affects,” Spear said.
Curt Upton, the principal city planner overseeing of ECAP, said CPD determined its outreach efforts by analyzing demographic trends in the comments residents submitted during community meetings.
Upton said CPD’s outreach meetings were primarily attended by property owners even though there are far more renters in the area. This fact alone made it necessary for CPD to focus its efforts on young renters, Upton said.
Other residents were concerned with the way CPD decided to define the neighborhoods ECAP will affect.
Instead of defining the plan area by the boundaries of neighborhood organizations, CPD used Statistical Neighborhood boundaries, which the agency created in the 1970s as a part of the Community Redevelopment Program.
Upton said CPD decided to use Statistical Neighborhood boundaries because they align with census tracts, thereby giving the agency access to data on the area’s demographic change.
“This plan is looking 20 years into the future, and hopefully by then we aren’t still in a housing crisis,” he added.
Historical Displacement
Many other residents believe ECAP will increase displacement because the plan’s transportation plans will increase investment and historic preservation in neighborhoods vulnerable to displacement like North Capitol Hill and City Park West.
“I remember a time when nobody cared about this neighborhood,” Julie Untiedt, volunteer president of the City Park West Neighborhood Association, told city council. “Now that the land is worth something, everyone wants to go changing the neighborhood.”
ECAP will focus on helping North Capitol Hill and City Park West meet Denver’s equity goals of providing multimodal transportation for residents and access to healthy food options. The plan also envisions high-comfort bike lanes running east-to-west through City Park West and North Capitol Hill along 16th Ave., and north-to-south along Franklin St. and Pennsylvania St., respectively.
As for the Colfax corridor, ECAP recommends rezoning the area to increase building height sizes up to eight stories. However, ECAP requires developers to provide a “community benefit” before they can build up. The plan does not specifically define what a community benefit is, but provides affordable business spaces, grocery stores, and daycare as examples. City council will have the authority to determine what benefit a developer must provide before approving a rezoning request.
The plan will also transform Colfax into a bus rapid transit system corridor, with stops at nearly every intersection between Broadway and Colorado Blvd. When combined with the historic preservation measures, some residents are concerned the cost of living will negatively impact the neighborhood’s small businesses.
“The thing that worries me the most is that small business owners will sell out, smart developers will scoop up their property, taxes will increase, and residents will face displacement for no reason whatsoever,” Dr. Giles Rafsnider told the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in an interview.
Upton verified these fears when he told city council that Denver doesn’t have the policy tools to address displacement of minority groups or small businesses. And, even though CPD discussed ECAP alongside concurrent efforts like the Missing Middle Housing Initiative and the Affordable Housing Zoning Incentive, the agency doesn’t fully understand how ECAP will impact other plans or legislative efforts.
During the 2020 session, Democrats in the General Assembly introduced legislation to overturn the Telluride Decision, a state Supreme Court ruling that struck down rent control policies.
However, Upton says, CPD believes its plans are flexible and capable of being molded to fit modern needs.
“As additional tools like state laws change, it’s only going to accelerate our efforts to provide affordable housing,” Upton said.
