Tony and Robin Kohake own a deteriorating home in Washington Park and wanted to tear it down and build something their family could actually live in. That should have been a straightforward permit process. Instead, someone else filed to have their house declared a Denver landmark, which froze the project and forced the couple into a city mediation process before they could touch a shovel. It took until September 2025, and a 3-3 vote by Denver's Landmark Preservation Commission, for the designation to be denied and their plans to move forward.
Here is the part that matters if you are shopping in Wash Park right now: their house was never inside a mapped historic district. Nobody had designated it a landmark. The application came from someone else entirely, and under Denver's rules, that is enough to stop a project cold. Meanwhile, since late 2024 the city has made it dramatically easier to add an accessory dwelling unit to almost any residential lot in Denver. Those two facts sitting next to each other are the real story for anyone buying an older home here with renovation, a pop-top, or an ADU in mind.
The fight over 800 South Franklin explains more than it seems
The Kohakes' case, reported by CBS Colorado in September 2025, is not an isolated oddity. Washington Park has a documented history of exactly this kind of standoff between owners who want to update or replace aging housing stock and neighbors who want to preserve it. The Washington Park East Neighborhood Association traces its own founding back to 1999, when a group calling itself Progress and Preservation Together formed specifically in response to a wave of pop-tops and full scrapes in the neighborhood. Westword covered the same tension under the headline "Pop-top Flop" back in 1998. This is not a new debate. What changed recently is the incentive to renovate rather than sell and walk away, which makes the risk more relevant to more buyers than it used to be.
What actually changed in December 2024
In December 2024, Denver's City Council passed a citywide zoning amendment allowing accessory dwelling units in every residential zone district in the city, a change reported at the time by Colorado Community Media. Councilmember Chris Hinds, one of the sponsors, said the reform would remove the need to navigate Denver's zoning code just to build a unit that used to require a lengthy rezoning process on a lot-by-lot basis. Combined with an earlier removal of the owner-occupancy requirement, the practical effect was significant: for the first time, a Wash Park homeowner did not need special permission from the city just to be eligible to add a backyard unit. Eligibility, citywide, became the default.
That is a real change, and it matters for a neighborhood where a detached ADU can plausibly add $1,200 to $2,000 a month in rental income to a property that already sits in one of Denver's most competitive submarkets. But eligibility is not the same thing as approval.
The catch: legal doesn't mean unreviewed
Denver's citywide ADU reform governs whether ADUs are allowed by zoning. It does not touch a separate, older layer of review that applies to individually landmarked properties and mapped historic districts, where any exterior work requiring a building permit still needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Landmark Preservation Commission. Historic Denver's own guidance on this is direct: additional design review in a historic district or on an individual landmark applies to exterior changes, full stop, regardless of what the base zoning code allows.
Here is the mechanism that catches buyers off guard. Under Denver's landmark ordinance, a non-owner-initiated designation application only needs to come from a minimum of three Denver residents or property owners, the city's planning manager, or a City Council member. An owner does not need to want landmark status for the process to start. A demolition permit application can itself trigger a review that leads to a landmark designation the owner never asked for, which is precisely the mechanism that stalled 800 South Franklin Street. Washington Park's housing stock, built almost entirely between 1905 and 1940 in Craftsman, Tudor revival, Colonial revival, and Dutch Colonial styles, is old enough that nearly every property qualifies for landmark consideration the moment someone decides to file.
Where the risk actually concentrates
This is not evenly distributed across the neighborhood, and the price tiers make that visible.
| Segment | Typical 2026 range | Landmark and ADU exposure |
|---|---|---|
| Condos and attached townhomes | roughly $532,000 to $850,000 based on early-to-mid 2026 listing data | Minimal. HOA rules govern most exterior changes, not the Landmark Preservation Commission. |
| Classic interior-block bungalow, built 1905 to 1940 | roughly $1.1 million to $1.4 million | Highest exposure. No existing landmark protection, but the property qualifies the moment anyone files. |
| Park perimeter properties | roughly $1.6 million to $2.5 million and up | Often already renovated or built new under prior review; less renovation-driven buying activity. |
| New construction | median around $2 million | The review process, if any applied, is already resolved before the home hits the market. |
The buyer most exposed to this risk is exactly the one who thinks they are getting the smartest deal in the neighborhood: someone paying $1.1 million to $1.4 million for a classic bungalow with a plan to renovate, pop the top, or add an ADU to make the math work in a neighborhood where the metro-wide median close price was $605,000 as of April 2026. That gap between Wash Park pricing and the rest of Denver is exactly why so many buyers here are counting on future value from work they have not done yet. The landmark exposure is the variable most of them never price in.
A due-diligence list that has nothing to do with square footage
Before writing an offer on a Wash Park property with renovation plans attached, work through this:
- Check Denver's official Historic Landmarks and Districts map for the specific address, not just the general neighborhood.
- Ask the listing agent directly whether a demolition permit application, or any prior landmark designation application, has ever been filed on the property. This is public record.
- Call Denver's Landmark Preservation staff before you get attached to a renovation plan. A short consultation can tell you if a project is likely to face resistance before you spend money on architectural drawings.
- Walk the block. Look for other pop-tops nearby and how they were designed. Signs of a contentious preservation fight, or their absence, tell you something zoning maps cannot.
- Ask whether the block has an active registered neighborhood organization or informal preservation group. Denver's RNO directory lists the contact for any neighborhood, and a call is worth the ten minutes.
None of this shows up in a listing description. All of it changes what you should be willing to pay.
What this means if Wash Park is one of several neighborhoods on your list
If you are comparing Washington Park against other Denver neighborhoods purely on the strength of the new ADU rules, the comparison is incomplete unless you are also comparing exposure to Denver's landmark process. A newer-construction neighborhood or one with less historic housing stock captures the ADU upside with almost none of this risk. Wash Park's premium buys you the park, the walkability to Historic South Gaylord Street, and a school assignment that includes Steele Elementary, but it also buys you a housing stock old enough that the preservation question is never fully off the table.
That is not a reason to avoid the neighborhood. It is a reason to underwrite the renovation separately from the purchase, and to treat "ADUs are legal here now" as a starting point for due diligence rather than the end of it.
A few straight answers
Does Denver's citywide ADU law override Washington Park's historic protections? No. The 2024 zoning amendment governs whether an ADU is allowed by use and dimension. It does not exempt individually landmarked properties or mapped historic districts from separate design review by the Landmark Preservation Commission.
Can my project be blocked even if my house isn't currently landmarked? Yes. Denver allows non-owner-initiated designation applications, filed by as few as three residents or property owners, which can trigger a review process during a pending demolition or major exterior project, as happened at 800 South Franklin Street.
Is there a way to know before I make an offer? Yes. Denver's Landmark Preservation staff will confirm a property's current status, and checking permit and designation history on a specific address is a public records request, not a guess.
Wash Park rewards buyers who do the homework a standard inspection does not cover. If you are weighing a bungalow purchase against the renovation or ADU plan that makes the price work, Alex Reber can walk the specific block with you, check the address against Denver's landmark records, and help you underwrite the project before you are under contract, not after. Let's Connect.