What is a small area plan and what does it include?
Small area plans cover a specific geography that is smaller than a neighborhood where redevelopment is likely. They provide policy guidance for city decision-making that is informed by the community's input. These areas usually involve a large parcel with a single landowner and represent the potential for a major transformation. The planning process ensures that as redevelopment moves forward, the community's priorities are identified and addressed.
Learn more about neighborhood and small area planning in Denver
How can the public participate?
The planning process will provide multiple opportunities for the public to weigh in, including in-person community meetings, online surveys, focus groups, and more. We encourage everyone to sign up for email updates to hear about how and when to get involved.
What are the goals of the plan?
Planning ensures that community members have a voice in how an area grows and develops. City planners engage residents, business owners, neighborhood leaders and other stakeholders in a process that results in a 20-year vision for the area that will inform city decision-making.
For the Burnham Yard Small Area Plan, goals for the planning process include addressing how neighbors connect to the site, how investment can be leveraged to support community needs and how to minimize displacement of residents and homes.
What will be in the plan? Will it include housing, amenities, infrastructure, etc.?
Small area plans typically include recommendations for housing, including providing options for affordable housing and keeping long-time residents from being priced out. They also address infrastructure issues such as street safety and sidewalks, as well as open space, trees and food access.
Like all small area plans, the Burnham Yard plan will be a community-driven plan. City planners will ask residents, local businesses and more to share their ideas and priorities for what this area needs and what will best serve the surrounding community
Who is involved in creating the plan?
From the city, Community Planning and Development planners will lead the process with input from partners in the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, Denver Parks and Recreation, other city agencies as well as City Council Offices.
From the community, we intend to engage everyone in the surrounding area: residents, local business owners, students, neighborhood groups, and community-serving organizations. We want to hear from long-time residents as well as newcomers, young people, families, those who live here, those who work here and those who will spend time here. Everyone who wants to participate is encouraged to get involved.
City staff will collect community input to inform a draft plan that will be reviewed and voted on by Denver’s Planning Board and City Council.
What is large development review and how is it related to the small area plan?
Large development review (LDR) is a process designed to ensure that sites poised for major redevelopment get clear direction from the city at the earliest stage of project planning on how they are expected to meet adopted plan goals important to Denver’s neighborhoods, including, for example, providing coordinated infrastructure improvements, multi-modal facilities, and publicly accessible open space. Given its size, the Burnham Yard site must go through LDR ahead of any redevelopment. The Denver Broncos have started this process by submitting a pre-application, including a high-level concept plan for the site. The result of LDR will be a framework for the future development of the site that will ensure infrastructure planning is coordinated with all the city agencies involved. LDR will run concurrently and in coordination with the community planning process.
Download LDR submittal(PDF, 17MB)
Learn more on the Denver Broncos website