You may have noticed the increased security measures taken by local retail stores over the past couple of years. The King Soopers at Union and Alameda had to hire private security due to the high number of thefts. They also stopped selling some electronic items and put others in less accessible places. This month, you may have noticed a new security feature, the uni-directional gate.
Shoplifting and theft are low-level offenses that the city police cannot respond to in time, if at all. Without consequences, the number of offenses is growing and putting pressure on store owners.
Lakewood’s new Community Outreach Court held its first session in December. They report:
7 participants
21 cases
21 warrants cleared
7 state id’s issued on-site
Community partners were available on-site to help with housing, counseling, substance abuse, and basic needs. The court will meet on the first Thursday of each month.
This report is confirmation that the court routinely vacates warrants, which Judge Bozarth previously reported on.
Warrants are given for Failure to Appear in answer to the original ticket. There may also be probable cause warrants for low-level offenses.
Outreach Court makes services more accessible by serving in high-need areas, rather than asking individuals to travel to court. Denver has had an Outreach Court serving at the Denver Rescue Mission since 2017. Lakewood is following Denver’s path.
There was no report as to how the original ticket or offense was handled. The point seemed to be clearing warrants and issuing state id’s.
Council Member Mayott-Guerrero commented this was an important step for entrenched individuals to make progress.
Per Colorado Revised Statutes a “‘Blighted area’ means an area that… is a menace to the public health, safety, morals, or welfare”. This definition is included in statute as a way to target areas for urban renewal and perhaps increased funds.
But not in Lakewood.
“In your city, the purpose of a blight designation is to do housing”
“In your city, the purpose of a blight designation is to do housing,” says independent, redevelopment specialist, Anne Ricker. Ricker’s firm, Ricker | Cunningham, was hired to evaluate blight at 1000 to 1090 S Wadsworth Blvd. This specialist was accustomed to evaluating blight as a first step towards urban renewal, but in this case, Lakewood is not using blight for renewal, just for regulating a certain type of growth. In other words, using blight as a way to allow increased high-density residential growth.
City Council Member Able agrees with this assessment. He stated that the blight designation was used to get around Strategic Growth Initiative requirements that our community passed at the ballot box.
So when the council is asked to approve blight in instances like this, what they are really doing is considering approval of over 40 units of high-density, residential units.
To prove that we are talking about residential development, some Council Members talk about developing the existing commercial use. In response, the property owner responds that they really need all available options that the zoning allows for, in order to make the property economically viable.
“How many affordable housing units have been produced out of [blight provisions]?…. ZERO”
Ironically, some of the problems noted in the blight study, such as limited access points, limited parking and crime, could all be exacerbated with higher-density use.
To make things more complicated, there appeared to be some confusion over City Council’s role. Several members seemed to suggest that Council should approve the request automatically, not because they agreed with the designation, but because the process had been followed. However, some followed up with the feeling that something was off.
Other council members had the idea that they could agree or disagree with the blight designation from the beginning. One member stated that you could blight anything if you wanted to. The problem was summarized, once again, by Councilor Able, when he suggested that the study appeared to be checking boxes without evaluating the deeper issue of a public menace, which is needed for blight.
In the end, the discussion turned to development rather than blight. Mayor Paul suggested that this blight designation go away so that applicants are not burdened with this process. The Mayor asked about using the new process of adding 20% affordable housing to a new development to bypass the blight designation. This discussion again reflects that “blight designation is used for development, not renewal, in Lakewood.” The 20% affordable housing provision also provides a “loophole” to the voter-approved Strategic Growth Initiative.
The designation was voted down. This was the second out of ten requests to be denied.
To review the new amendment authorizing the use of affordable housing to allow high-density growth, watch the video here.
“The general formula is that it costs more to provide services to residential… Than [they] bring in tax revenue.” (15th of May, 2017, Mr. Tim Cox, former city attorney for Lakewood).
Although Lakewood should know this basic planning fact, the city continues to replace commercially zoned properties with high-density residential development.
Lakewood has been sanctioning the rezoning of commercial properties to “mixed use”, which in Lakewood parlance means “rentals.” This is along Union Boulevard, which used to be a heavily-commercial area serving the neighboring communities.
The current administration is continuing down the route of seemingly intentional avoidance of doing real economic development. Real is the key here, since, to Lakewood “economic development” seems to mean car washes, pot shops, failing retail, and storage units.
Not world-class companies and world-class education opportunities to ensure a supply of highly-skilled workers who would then have much better economic opportunities available to them within the community.
Lakewood does not even bother to enforce the spirit of mixed use development.
This is what an actual “mixed use” development might look like.Mixed use. Lakewood style.“Luxury” apartments in Lakewood.Actual, luxury, apartments.
City administration has been doubling down on high-priced rentals and metro districts, while claiming “affordability” and that this, somehow, replaces actual economic development. Perhaps, they missed the recent story about a price fixing scheme by a company which advises the corporate rental owners (think, large scale apartments, such as the ones been built in Lakewood, instead of “middle” housing):
It is as if those talking about “affordability” actually want to ensure that more people are locked into perpetual financial servitude, instead of working on bringing in local, well-paying jobs into the city.
More often, than not, Lakewood makes it in the news for these types of stories:
Unsurprisingly, some of the Lakewood City Council and city staff are failing to understand (or intentionally avoid?) the link between the failure in economic development and the unfortunate consequences this leads to when it comes to the increase in crime. A “rising tide lifts all the boats” indeed and if the city had a robust economic engine (which it does not), other economic opportunities would follow.
Lakewood Continues to Setup for Economic Failure
Residential properties, generally, are a net negative to the municipality as they cost more to provide services to, while not bringing enough revenue in to cover those costs. Furthermore, Lakewood has completely failed to properly scale up and maintain the needed infrastructure and amenities (such as parks, grocery stores, public spaces and playgrounds, collocated with the high density developments). Nor are there well-paying employment opportunities within walking distance.
By “well-paying employment opportunities”, we mean:
Not another car wash, storage unit, or a quick food joint.
So as Lakewood doubles down on destroying the commercial potential of the city and adding bedrooms which will likely cause more expense to the city, we just ask ourselves if the city administration and planning staff understand the importance of maintaining a balance between residential and commercial development.
Addenbrooke Classical Academy Executive Director Ric Netzor made a public plea for help to the City of Lakewood, November 28, 2022.
“We need your help. There is a bar that prohibits our people from entering and exiting our campuses other than from one street and that is from up Teller St. The bar is put there because of fire requirements and it is actually owned by the City and County of Denver.”
Netzor continues, “I am asking that Lakewood, since I believe Addenbrooke to be a star in your crown so to speak, I ask that you step in and assist us in this area.”
Video starts at Mr. Netzor’s public comment
Addenbrooke is like many schools with car line problems. However, it does have complicating factors with Denver Christian School next door, who already had a long car line on the same street before Addenbrooke. On top of that, Addenbrooke is across from Windsor at Pinehurst Apartments that are still adding new units.
Mr. Netzor states:
“The City and County of Denver has said that the City of Lakewood should have never allowed this portion of the Academy Park area to grow to the extent that it has but we find ourselves there.”
Looking at the area map once again, readers may notice that there is a dense development on one only side of Pierce (marked in red).
The west side of Pierce St marks the boundary with Denver. DENVER planned for development to the edges of their constituency and put a road in there. Did Lakewood assume Denver would allow use of its streets?
Common use for streets may normally be a reasonable assumption but it’s still an assumption the city has a duty to check. Furthermore, parents of Addenbrooke students have heard that Denver constituents in Colorado Academy and Pinehurst Country Club have made pleas to Denver to keep traffic off Pierce. One father relates trying to skip the line by dropping off on Pierce and being yelled at from what appeared to a parent from Colorado Academy, lending credence to the theory.
So the solution may appear to be as easy as convincing Denver to let Lakewood businesses use its streets, but this is an example of Lakewood planning not anticipating development issues and being absent from helping to solve problems of their making. What could LAKEWOOD do to solve this problem, without throwing blame on Denver, who is looking out for their own constituents?
At the end of public comment, Mayor Paul commented on the issue, “We certainly understand the problem of Addenbrooke area with all the schools and the frustrating issue with our partners in Denver not being able to open a gate so we will certainly continue to try and work that out.”
No statement of Lakewood accountability was made. No assurances that Lakewood would not grow an area beyond its infrastructure were made.
Read into public record: a FOIA request has been bounced around for 3 months, since August, 2022. Latest response requests renegotiation of data release by January 5, 2023.
