Pel-Ona Architects & Urbanists was hired to evaluate the code and craft overlay district regulations for the Harkness Heights neighborhood and commercial corridors within Council District 1, which includes Denver’s Northwest neighborhoods.
Pel-Ona, along with two graduate student interns, Naomi Grunditz and Matthew Bossler, conducted a series of surveys and presented their conclusions to neighborhood organizations and residents through several public outreach meetings. A final report with regulation recommendations prepared by Pel-Ona was submitted to the City by Councilperson Rafael Espinoza.
One component of the proposed overlay includes a new, more restrictive building form to preserve the scale and massing characteristics of the neighborhood. Another component includes maintaining a consistent row of street trees along the tree lawn close to the traffic flow to preserve the neighborhood character and to slow down the vehicular traffic, thus creating a comfortable sidewalk and prevent formation of heat islands on the streets.
A massing study of the bulk plane for the preservation overlay of Harkness Heights.
(On left) A map of the half blocks at Grove Street with the tree canopy highlighted to analyze the current condition of the street trees. (On right) Frequencies of buildings with different heights along Grove Street. The sample set includes 49 properties.