The center hopes to continue its work helping patients who aren’t able to find consistent medical care elsewhere, but its future now depends on the outcome of a proposed legislative rezoning amendment put forth by Denver City Council member Kendra Black, according to Evans CEO Ramin Vatan.
Vatan owns the center with his wife, Dr. Sara Vatan. The pair moved to Denver from Iran in 1990.The rezoning amendment would affect their property and several others nearby.
According to Vatan, the rezoning process has been rushed through to a city council vote and the medical center has largely been kept in the dark about the proposal — leaving its owners little time to understand the potential changes and their implications, or to do anything about them.
On top of that, he says, the center has been treated unfairly when compared to the other property owners involved.
At present, the Evans Medical Center is just one story in height. Denver’s current zoning code allows for a new structure built on the property to be six stories high. Councilmember Black’s legislative rezoning amendment would reduce that height limit to just three stories — or four, if the new structure included a certain amount of affordable housing.
Vatan says he is less concerned about the height restriction than he is about how the amendment will affect the value of the medical center property. “We would be at negative equity,” he tells Westword.
The amount of money he would owe on the loan for the property would be more than the rezoned property would be worth, explains Vatan, and he’s afraid that his bank would ask him to pay the difference between what he owes on the loan and the new, reduced value of the property — which he would not be able to do.
He adds that the medical center depends on the equity of its property as a financial cushion that allows it to provide free medical services to people who cannot afford to pay.
“If you are homeless, we do not charge you; your services are free,” Vatan notes. “If you are a child under sixteen, we don’t charge you; your services are free. If you are a disabled veteran, your services are free.”
The center loses money providing these free services, but it eventually recoups that money when it receives payments from Medicaid and Medicare or receives a grant. The center ultimately sees the equity of its property as a safety net that it can fall back on.
The rezoning would take away that safety net.
Vatan says he worries “all the time” that the center will go too far in the red and not make enough money back. But, he asks, “What choice do I have?”
Black says her rezoning proposal addresses the concerns of the surrounding neighborhood. She currently represents Denver’s District 4, and would like to get this completed before she leaves office in July.
According to Black, the University Hills neighborhood has been experiencing intense growth since the light rail went into the neighborhood more than twenty years ago. “For twenty years, the neighborhood has been asking the city for a plan [to guide that growth],” she says.
In 2017, Denver launched the Neighborhood Planning Initiative, which calls for communities to work with city officials to make recommendations for how growth should occur throughout the city’s various neighborhoods. The Evans Medical Center falls within the area covered by the Near Southeast Area Plan (NSAP).
That plan recommends density and tall buildings near I-25 and the Colorado light rail station and lower height restrictions moving into the neighborhood. Black says her rezoning proposal is meant to actualize the recommendations of the NSAP.
“Without doing rezoning to implement the plan recommendations, the plans are just aspirational,” she says. “They don’t mean anything.”
The NSAP was adopted by Denver City Council on May 22. But Vatan points out that Black submitted her application for legislative rezoning long before that, on March 14.
Jenny Neuhalfen, president of the University Hills North Community Registered Neighborhood organization, says: “Regarding the rezoning, we are in full support of it, because it provides the guidance that our neighborhood has been looking for for many, many, many years.”
Black says that Evans Medical Center has had the opportunity to participate in community meetings and provide feedback on the NSAP during the multiple years that the plan has been in development. Vatan counters that while the center had been aware of the NSAP, the owners hadn’t felt compelled to be involved in the planning process because the first draft recommended a height limit of five stories for the area surrounding their property, and they were okay with that.
The second draft of the NSAP, which recommends a height limit of three stories, was not posted for public review until February 2023. Black notes that Vatan “had until the end of March to comment [on the second draft of the plan], and he did not comment.”
However, Vatan claims that Black has communicated extensively with other property owners included in the rezoning proposal — and has even worked out individual deals with some of them. Through Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests, he obtained emails between Black and some of the other property owners that allegedly show her communicating directly with them about the legislative rezoning. Vatan says this courtesy and advance outreach was not extended to Evans Medical Center.
He claims that the center was not notified of the rezoning until late February, something that Black initially confirmed to Westword by phone, saying, “All of the property owners found out about [the rezoning] at the same time [in February].” But in an email she sent to members of Denver Community Planning and Development on January 19, Black wrote: “Here are 2 PowerPoints that I presented to Denver Academy and to Clermont Christian Living. Both organizations are supportive of all of the proposed rezonings but they both want to cap their own heights at 4 stories.”
Both Denver Academy and Clermont Christian Living originally fell within the area outlined by the adopted NSAP that recommended a height limit of three stories. “I notified all properties owners via mail during the month of February,” Black clarified in a follow-up email after her phone conversation with Westword. “In advance of that, I had conversations with Denver Academy and Clermont.
“In January, I told Jarvie Warcester (the developer who was planning to purchase the 3 properties to build a 7-story apartment) that I was planning on applying for a legislative rezoning,” the email continued. “Since he was representing the owners it is my understanding from him that he shared this information with them.”
Vatan says the medical center’s vision for the future was a six-story building: The clinic would occupy the first three stories, and the top three would be housing, which he saw as “a way to finance that development.”
“Jarvie never communicated that with us because we were not under contract at that time,” he adds. Although it went under contract with a developer so it could do a land survey and come up with a development plan, Vatan says the center did not like the plan the developer came up with and decided not to move forward.
On January 4, Mark Twarogowski, the Head of School at Denver Academy — which is adjacent to Evans Medical Center — sent an email to Black in which he wrote, “I think it would make sense for you to present the ‘Whole zoning package’ proposal to our Board (Both the DA campus AND the proposed apartment development site). It will be important for them to see that our endorsement of re-zoning of our campus is connected to height limitations/re-zoning of the proposed development site on Iliff and Dahlia. (In other words: What do we get out of this endorsement?)”
According to Black, she and Twarogowski worked out a deal in which Denver Academy could keep its original zoning designation, but with a height waiver that caps the property at three stories. Noting that “councilmembers cannot apply for waivers,” she agreed to let Denver Academy submit its own rezoning application rather than include the school in the legislative rezoning amendment.
Twarogowski says the reason the school agreed to the height limit reduction in its rezoning application “is to be good neighbors, good stewards of the neighborhood.” But Vatan believes that Black let Denver Academy submit its own application so that it could pull it once Black leaves office and not be subject to a zoning designation with a reduced-height waiver.
“That’s true,” Twarogowski acknowledges. He says Denver Academy would not reconsider applying for rezoning if the legislative rezoning amendment does not pass.
“That’s true,” Twarogowski says, acknowledging that Denver Academy has the opportunity to pull its rezoning application regardless of the outcome of the legislative rezoning amendment. But, he says, the school would only pull its rezoning application if Black’s legislative rezoning amendment does not pass. They will move forward with the application if it does.
“We’re not going to sit there and be the only property that self-imposes this three-story limit while the other properties get to build whatever they want,” he adds.
Black says if her legislative rezoning proposal passes, “I have full confidence that they will rezone.”
Describing her communication and outreach about the rezoning proposal to the medical center, Black adds: “To be clear, per our Denver city attorneys, all legally required posting and notification requirements have been met.”
On May 17, the Denver Planning Board sent a letter to the members of city council, advising them to deny Black’s proposal.
“While board members generally agreed with the concept of height transitions, they expressed concern that the evidence presented regarding effective outreach for this sub-area of the rezoning package was not consistent with equity principles in Blueprint and Comp Plan, which identifies that achieving equity may require not treating every person or place exactly the same,” the board said in its letter.
The planning board advises city officials on land-use matters and cannot do anything more than make recommendations.
“Board members recommended additional dialogue to balance the objectives of property owners, residents of the surrounding community and other stakeholders,” the letter continued.
Vatan reiterates that it is the financial implication of the rezone that concerns him. He says the medical center would have been open to coming to an agreement on reducing its property’s height limit if it had been involved in the conversation around the legislative rezoning earlier on.
“That option was taken away from us,” he claims.
Denver City Council will hold a public hearing for Black’s rezoning proposal on June 20 at 5:30 p.m.
The Denver Planning Board’s letter to city council explaining its decision to recommend they vote “no” on Councilwoman Black’s rezoning proposal.
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