THIS POT (VASE? URN?) WAS PEACHILY PURSED at the 12th annual Denver Downtown Arts Festival held Memorial Day weekend near 16th & Glenarm. It was conceived by artist Casey Hankin, just one of more than 130 (jury-selected) Colorado artists & fine craftsmen who exhibited at the event. There’s even more outdoor fun to be found locally this month. PHOTO BY JEFF HERSCH

■ Curbs, parking, patios & planters discussed at June meeting

BY RORY SEEBER

Discussions intended to lead to a compromise on the redesign of Fillmore Plaza continued with one meeting held last month. City Council District 10 representative Jeanne Robb had convened the first meeting between the concerned parties in late May. A similar gathering was held June 11 at the Sturm Building on the plaza, between 1st & 2nd on Fillmore.
    Attendees included representatives of the Cherry Creek North Business Improvement District (CCN-BID), the Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association (CCNNA) and Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods as well as Public Works’ director of Right-of-Way (ROW) Enforcement Rob Duncanson and Excise & Licenses director Penny May, among others.

■ Task force lauded, six-month transition period begins

BY RORY SEEBER

The code is organic. It is alive and it will always be changing, just as our city and our values will always be changing.”
    So said District 4 City Councilwoman Peggy Lehmann near the end of a nearly eight-hour public hearing June 21 that concluded with the unanimous approval a new zoning code for Denver. 

    City Council heard far less public testimony than it had predicted and was able to finish the hearing in two sessions on a single day instead of the two consecutive days it had planned. Its vote culminated more than five years of effort by the 15-member, public-private Zoning Code Task Force (ZCTF) to write a new code to replace the existing law, which was published in 1956.

■ Presentations to neighborhood organizations intended to ‘address legitimate concerns’

BY RORY SEEBER

Representatives of US OpenAir (USOA), which plans to debut a month-long outdoor movie series in City Park next summer, attended a series of community meetings in June to address concerns about the project “before any further discussion is played out without the proper research in place,” as explained by USOA managing director Julie Frahm.
    Eight meetings with registered neighborhood organizations (RNO) were held last month and as of deadline another nine were scheduled for July, along with a few the following month.
    At the June 22 general membership meeting of the North City Park Civic Association (NCPCA), held at Scott United Methodist Church, 29th & Garfield, Frahm told the approximately 25 association members present, “It’s totally different than the city’s free films.” She clarified that the quality and types of food to be available, the atmosphere, the grandstand to be used, and the technology will all contribute to making the movies much more of a special event.