By Myles Tangalin, CPN representative to ECAP

The East Central Area Plan (ECAP) is a 270-page draft document that attempts to lay out plans for Land Use, Housing, Mobility, Quality of Life and oth-er very large, complex topics—for six Denver neigh-borhoods over the next several years. The ECAP was released to the public in November 2019 and the plan was scheduled for a spring city council vote.

The ECAP Steering Committee met on Thursday, February 13 at the Wellington Web Building. We reviewed key themes from public input.

The feedback period was scheduled to close February 5. After many Registered Neighborhood Organizations requested a time extension for additional out-reach, the City extended the feedback period through March 31. Outreach will include partnering with RNOs, distributing hard copies, gathering comment sheets, holding extended office hours, re-opening the online draft, distributing flyers and providing media kits to RNOs.

This is a substantial, comprehensive and complex plan; more discussion is needed and warranted with such wide-ranging topics and the potential for extensive human impact. The ECAP area is 3.89 square miles, has 32,684 housing units, a population of 46,488 people and we represent 6.5% of the city’s population. Within our boundaries contain some of the major attractions and parks in the city, along with the most heavily-used traffic corridors in the region.

The current outreach includes 8,900+ online responses; 1,600 responses from 200 commenters from the latest February 5 comment period, which represents a mere .0043% of the ECAP population. Most online commenters did not include their location, so it isn’t known whether those responses are from ECAP residents. It’s critical that all residents who would be impacted by the changes proposed in this plan be well-informed and their input be specifically solicited and considered.

Visit www.denvergov.org, community planning and development, Neighborhood Planning Initiative and www.congressparkneighbors.org to see the draft plan and all the information posted about the responses. Make sure you add your comments so your voice is heard