Lakewood City Council approved a new land use scheme that overturns citizen initiative

From Save Open Space – Lakewood

2/24 Lakewood Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, backed by dark money, continue City’s long history of choosing development over environment

Council’s action threw out the wishes of over 8,000 community members who signed the Save Open Space Lakewood Green Initiative petition

2/24 Lakewood Council approved a new land use scheme reinstating a loophole that allows developers to pay a fee in lieu of land donation

On February 24, 2025, Lakewood City Council voted to repeal and replace the citizens’ initiated Save Open Space Lakewood (SOS Lakewood) Green Initiative with City Hall’s anti-environmental, no-transparency, developer-friendly ordinance. 

“The City’s vote reinstates the practice of back-door deals where fees are prioritized over parks and open spaces. It is also a slap in the face to petitioners whose pleas not only went unheard, but who also faced personal attacks by a well-orchestrated campaign against the initiative,” said Cathy Kentner, petition representative.

At the heart of the initiative was eliminating the provision that allowed large developments to pay a fee-in-lieu of creating a one third acre or larger “pocket park.”  By wrongfully withholding building permits from projects that had already paid a fee and by wrongfully requiring land dedication for smaller projects, City Hall was successful in fabricating a “crisis” that they “heroically” solved. They used the “unintended consequences” suffered by the smaller projects to put back in place all of the problems that led to the initiative – back-door deal making and a scheme where paying a fee is always more of an incentive than providing the open space. And there is no oversight for even the largest of development projects.

The irony is that the majority of city councilors boast their support for sustainability and parks but their actions enable corporate greed to rule. Or perhaps they are making good on unspoken promises to campaign donors. 

More than half of the money spent to elect Mayor Pro-Tem Jeslin Shahrezaei to Council, or tens of thousands of dollars, came from the Metro Housing Coalition and the National Association of Realtors which, in 2020, apologized for its long-standing racist policies. In addition to being heavily funded by those same organizations, Mayor Wendi Strom was also supported by One Main Street Colorado, recently described in The Denver Post as a “dark money” group.

Former Lakewood City Councilor, now State Representative Rebekah Stewart, received money from these same developer dark money groups. She has already sponsored two bills that favor developers and propose to make citizen initiatives more difficult.

Speaking on behalf of Save Belmar Park, attorney Patricia Mellen said, “This ordinance experience has raised more questions than it has answered. What happened to the great oversight ideas from the study session a month ago? What happened to the ideas from last March? Why does the discretion and power always return to the staff? Why was the staff’s moratorium on building permits allowed when the City had months to create contingency plans about what would happen if the ordinance gathered enough votes? Why did the City staff not use waivers for affordable housing and single family homeowners? Why was a self-inflicted crisis the strategy? Save Belmar Park’s frustration is with the same issues in this ordinance that exist in the zoning ordinance where there is a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability, a lack of elected official oversight, a lack of public input, a lack of appeal options about decisions.”

A Denver Post editorial (2/16) proclaimed “Lakewood’s Messy Fight Can Be Solved.”  But instead of finding a simple solution, as suggested by the Post, and instead of keeping their word to make amendments without changing the overall intent of the initiative, City Hall pulled a bait and switch, revealing a developer friendly ordinance that incentivises a fee in lieu in every case.

Kentner said, “Instead of accepting responsibility for the chaos they had created, City Hall launched a campaign of misinformation to scapegoat the initiative for problems that they labeled ‘unintended consequences.’ The petition was falsely labeled ‘anti-growth,’ yet it was the City that withheld building permits, causing numerous people to suffer needlessly. The ordinance passed this week does not honor the wishes of many thousands of constituents who signed a petition asking the City Council to eliminate the option for developers to pay a fee instead of providing parkland and to apply it to all projects that haven’t already met the requirement. The default should be land dedication for parks and open spaces; not a fee that is many years old and is never commensurate with the price of the land. Oversight is not a ‘barrier’ to development. It is a ‘guardrail’ to big money corporations buying out of our land use requirements.”

This week’s vote overturned the initiative, keeping none of the citizen requested provisions.