During two upcoming Lakewood City Council meetings Save Belmar Park supporters will continue to testify against multibillion dollar developer Kairoi Residential that has planned and pushed through with the full cooperation of the City of Lakewood a gigantic 412 unit, 5 story luxury apartment building sharing the eastern boundary of the city’s treasured Belmar Park.
Gigantic: It has a footprint of two football fields, is 5 stories high, most with 83 apartments on each floor.
Secretive: The Lakewood City Council only notified a small neighborhood HOA, Belmar Commons, about the planned development a year ago.
The two month pause declared by Karoi to meet with the community concludes December 20. Kairoi has not responded to SBP’s inquiry about a meeting date. Bits and pieces have come through to SBP only after Kairoi talked to City officials.
Smoke and mirrors?
The latest “bit” is that Kairoi, in collaboration with the City, last week defined the terms of the community meeting they had pledged to hold. They will limit attendance to a very few residents of Belmar Commons where the primary, legitimate concern is safety on S. Yarrow Street. This will not reflect the many different reasons for concern expressed by park users SBP has talked to regarding the mammoth Kairoi building.
Kairoi has hired attorney Carolynne White of the prestigious and powerful Brownstein firm to represent them. Records show she contributed to the campaign of outgoing Lakewood mayor Adam Paul. The Brownstein firm has been hired by Lakewood on numerous occasions. SBP has used the expertise of its core group to double down on Kairoi, which is a multibillion dollar company based in San Antonio with offices in Denver and elsewhere in the U.S. The grassroots group includes a therapist, lawyer, teacher, city planner, sociologist, media relations specialist, wildlife conservationist and former geologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
Belmar Park is unique. An unofficial bird and wildlife sanctuary, it is home to 200 plus species of birds as well as turtles, beaver, fish, foxes, and more. It has miles of walking and bicycle trails and open range horseback riding. Many hundreds of park goers have expressed concern over the impact of the building on the park’s environment, including the removal of 69 mature trees, which will further contribute to climate change and also the destruction of already diminishing habitat for birds at a time when a third of the bird population has already been lost.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service notes, “The best way to avoid habitat impacts is to avoid placing development and energy projects in or near important bird habitat.”
The Lakewood Planning Commission was asked by City Council to investigate ways to expand use of Additional Dwelling Units (ADUs) to increase affordable housing in Lakewood. In a series of increasingly acrimonious meetings, the Commission developed a series of recommendations that have residents concerned the city would turn all R1 zones into R2 zones while having no impact on affordable housing. The main barrier to building ADUs are the high water and sewer tap fees, which the city has no control over. Rather than acknowledging the barrier is out of city control, some Commissioners pushed to “liberalize” the code while arguing with other Commissioners over the basics, such as what “primary residence” means.
The theory behind the original request was that people with large lots could easily add an ADU, such as a mother-in-law suite or garage apartment, to make easy affordable housing. As the Planning Commission quickly found out, ADUs are extremely uncommon. The reason for that is the cost of the water and sewer taps. These fees are set by the respective water and sanitation districts to cover the cost for infrastructure and cannot be changed by Lakewood.
After determining the cause of limited ADU development, the Planning Commission faced a decision:
Accept the research that the City was not inhibiting ADUs, and therefore there was no significant action they could take, or;
Ignore the research and recommend changes to try and bypass the regulations set by water districts.
The Commission chose the later option, interpreting the assignment as a mandate for action no matter what the research revealed. Dialogue from the Commissioners revealed the reason for this stance.
Commissioner Kolkmeier stated: ““We have, without question, an affordability problem, and it’s not just Lakewood. What would be a change for ADUs that would be reasonable that would help the problem that is pretty well documented?”
In fact, Lakewood’s own housing study shows that Lakewood has excess housing for units over $800 a month. Lakewood is currently developing more housing so that within 10 years a glut of housing is expected. The affordability crisis is for extremely-low-income housing, which is a need that an ADU cannot fill.
Commissioner Animosity
As Commissioner Kentner pointed out, another problem with ADUs is that they do not increase the opportunity for home ownership, there are only opportunities for rental units.
Following Kentner advocating for home ownership opportunities, Commissioner Kip Kolkmeier chastised Commissioner Kentner for two minutes in the middle of the November 15 Planning Commission meeting and refused to immediately allow her to clarify her comments, which she says were misinterpreted.
Commissioner Kolkmeier said with some apparent animosity, “This notion that people are concerned about rentals… this is a real problem…. Merely because someone has different economics, it does not make them a bad neighbor. It does not make them someone that you do not want to have more of…. We have a clear majority in this city that understands that we should not choose between renters and owners.”
Kentner did not, in fact, say anything against renters, but rather advocated for ownership opportunities. She also spoke of listening to the people who came for public comment., including the Eiber neighborhood which put out a call to action regarding these changes.
When Kolkmeier did allow Kentner to speak and defend herself, he took the last word in the acrimonious exchange.
FACT CHECK: Commissioner Kentner made the claim that under the proposed rules, there could be two Short-Term Rentals (STRs) on a property. Commissioner Kolkmeier claimed that was inaccurate because one unit would have to be a primary residence. Kentner returned that primary residence did not mean owner occupied, therefore when the owner is not at the primary residence, there could be two STRs. Although Kolkmeier did not say Kentner was right, he did agree that removing the owner-occupied provision would be the result of the Planning Commission having the votes.
Public comment
Commissioner Kentner also stood up for the number of residents who provided public comment against the proposed zoning code changes during the November 5 meeting. Kenter pointed out that given the low attendance at these meetings, the number of comments received was surprising and should be listened to.
Residents pointed out that there was robust public comment on this issue during the 2012 zoning rewrite and that many of the regulations that the Planning Commission is trying to relax, were intended to keep the impact to neighbors to a minimum.
The proposed regulations regarding height, floor area, and ubiquitous zoning, when taken together, constitute nothing less than a second full-scale structure, which compromises the very purpose of an R-1 zone, effectively replacing it with R-2 zoning. As such, R-1 zoning will become RINO, and altogether irrelevant, which is a violation of the public trust.
Public comment in favor of the changes advocated for any type of increased housing and typically did not address neighborhood suitability or specific changes. No research was presented that ADUs would fill a need that an apartment complex in an area zoned for multi-family would not.
Summary:
Kolkmeier summarized the issue by saying that Lakewood essentially outlaws ADUs and they are necessary for the affordability problem. However, he says, “It may be possible to dramatically liberalize the ability for ADUs… and yet there may not be any more ADUs” due to the cost of tap fees.
The vote passed, with all Commissioners present voting to pass the recommendations to City Council (Kentner and Peters absent).
Waivers will now be granted (for setbacks, open space, or other rules governing development)
It remains to be seen if Council will be presented with information on how the true barrier is water tap fees and the proposed code changes are expected to be ineffective.
The following is a transcription of public comment from the November 27 City Council meeting. It provides an update on a case the city fully expected to lose. The City, and the people, won first in trial court, and now again in the Court of Appeals. Congratulations and thank you!
By Lenore Herskovitz
I don’t know how many of you presently sitting on City Council are aware of a lawsuit filed in 2021 by Colorado Christian University against the City of Lakewood regarding an ordinance pertaining to Student Living Units. Two years ago some of the new Council members expressed an interest in learning about this but never followed up.
I am bringing this up because last Wednesday the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled on this lawsuit.
They affirmed the District Court decision in favor of the City (and the Intervenors who stood up for their neighborhood) and permits the City to prohibit certain uses (in this case Student Living Units) in their zoning.
CCU was claiming discrimination and violation of their constitutional rights. Both the District and Appellate Court disagreed. The timing of this ruling is serendipitous occurring the day before Thanksgiving. Also tonight marks Councilors LaBure’s return to the dais. He was a sitting Councilor in April, 2021 and voted with the majority of the Council to reinstate with modifications the Student Living Unit definition that had been removed without notification from the 2012 revised Lakewood Municipal Code.
Although this was an issue that directly affected the neighborhood surrounding CCU, it should be of interest to everyone because of the way the City handled it. This is part of a pattern of procedures and behaviors that tend to favor big money interests over those of city residents. CCU has been attempting to use properties in low density neighborhoods for student housing for two decades. In 2003 concerned citizens convinced their representatives to pass legislation which prohibited university uses such as student living units in R-1, R-2 zones. However, in 2012, the LMC was revised without redlining changes, so it was not noted till years later that the Student Living Unit definition had been removed.
Before this rewrite began various straw buyers and later the University itself started buying up all the duplexes on Cedar and the west side of S. Cody Ct. The neighborhood was unaware of this until it was too late to prevent the school from applying for and receiving a zoning change which allowed them to incorporate these homes into the CCU campus. The neighborhood’s goal was to block further university incursions but the school continued to buy up homes on the east side of S. Cody Ct. At present, they own all but one duplex on the street. Although the ordinance prohibiting university use was in existence before CCU began their takeover of S. Cody Ct. in 2017 school representatives decided to remove their regular tenants and replace them with their students.
This set off a fire storm among residents. Community members frequently appeared before Council to voice their concerns. For two years quarterly forums were held with CCU , residents and city representatives in an attempt to resolve the problems of traffic congestion, safety, parking, encroachment, etc.
Not once did the University give us an answer about their future plans for our neighborhood.
After the reinstatement of the Student Living Unit definition in April 2021, CCU decided to test the ordinance by placing six students in the duplex next-door to me. This house had been sitting vacant for two years and had never housed students since CCU took ownership of the property. Because too many unrelated people were living in this duplex,
I spent one month attempting to work with the University to resolve the issue without filing a formal complaint with the city.
School representatives felt they weren’t doing anything wrong, so they never adhered to the code. I then filed a complaint with Code Enforcement who referred me to the City’s Planning Director Travis Parker. That was an odd turn of events. This led to a conference call between myself, Mr. Parker and Robert Baker (then president of the MidLakewood Civic Association). Through the conversation, we learned that CCU had filed a lawsuit in response to the City’s cease and desist order.
We were told that the city staff had decided to allow CCU to continue housing students in the disputed duplexes until a court ruling was reached. Basically, the city was ignoring their own ordinance and acting as if CCU had already won the case.
Early on the city decided there would be no mention of the lawsuit, even when inquiries were made during public comment. Former Councilor Able had difficulty getting information from the city attorney about the status of filings. As a result of this stonewalling, Mr. Baker and myself did some independent research. Through a free consultation with a lawyer, we were able to obtain several of the initial pleadings. This included a Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order filed by CCU to allow students to remain in the disputed properties. This was unopposed by the city.
This motion contained misrepresentation of facts to support their request, yet it was unchallenged by the City’s legal team. The dilemma was how to get the Judge to know the truth.
A friend remembered a case in which the neighborhood filed a Motion to Intervene. The rest is history.
Two ordinary citizens, without legal representation, filed Motions to Intervene.
We were granted intervenor status and moving forward we had to be notified about every pleading and every hearing. We were now parties to the lawsuit and were no longer kept in the dark.
It is fitting that I share this story with a room full of concerned citizens who are facing their own challenges with this city. Although as intervenors we were on the same side as the City, we entered the case because we feared the Lakewood legal representatives were doing an inadequate job of defending our neighborhood. We were facing a powerful and wealthy university who was used to getting what they wanted, often with the help of the City.
For 10 years our city staff and attorneys told us that our ordinance was unconstitutional and would not stand up to a legal challenge.
You were told at the last council meeting that former Councilor Springsteen’s resolution was illegal. That wasn’t true but it provided justification for Council’s position that there was nothing they could do.
To appease the Belmar advocates, the developer agreed to an in person meeting with community members and a two month pause. Well, six weeks will have expired before the unrequested meeting takes place. I wonder how much will be accomplished with a gathering of a select few community members, the developer and perhaps city staff and Councilors. What is the expected outcome? According to Matt Post, the city planner for this project, this meeting will not be recorded although notes will be taken. Who will be assigned this task and what biases will come into play when deciding what is significant?
Communication between our representatives, the staff and residents is insufficient. The constituents are denied accountability for the decisions made by department heads, including Kit Newland, Director of Community Resources and Travis Parker, Planning Director. For example, who decided it was in the public’s best interest to accept a fee in lieu instead of designated open space? Why were no explanations offered? There is no operational system of checks and balances, no oversight, no transparency.
The council sits back acting helpless. Why don’t you represent the people instead of regurgitating staff’s messaging. Please explain why staff consistently ignores the standards they create in their own comprehensive plan and you as council members don’t question it?
I have such great respect for the people who attend these council meetings -who educate themselves and speak passionately about their concerns. Often they are categorized as the “loud” people or sometimes “disruptors”, but they care enough to show up in spite of the frustrations that await them in these Chambers. They persevere.
I leave you with a Margaret Meade quote that some may already know:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Meade
Read below for the full Opinion for the Court of Appeals
Denver is number 10 in the nation for the number of homeless and the situation is getting worse. Over the last five years, Colorado Springs homeless population has decreased. Lakewood is currently on track to follow Denver’s example of spending money without implementing the lessons from successful models like Colorado Springs.
Lakewood’s navigation center will work by providing money to RecoveryWorks, which currently provide multiple services from their site, including safe needles. This is opposite to the Springs Rescue Mission philosophy, which is that if you give a person a free granola bar, this incentivizes people coming back for more free granola bars.
Watch how the Springs Rescue Mission emphasizes Relief, Restoration and Reintegration in this interview.
Lakewood has chosen its partner and they will run it, so the decision may have already been made to reject the Springs model.
RecoveryWorks will be hosting an Open House on November 30 regarding the new navigation center (RSVP on their site). They may provide more information than the city since Lakewood has no details on running any program, besides providing money. This is the path towards the Homeless Industrial Complex that Denver is known for.
How much will Lakewood spend and for what?
Watch Council Member Springsteen ask how much shelter we could provide for $1 million, rather than paying to tear down private property.
City Manager Hodgson responds that as a result of a county-wide study, the cost of two navigation centers may be $80 million. Since that time, Arvada has stopped plans to host a navigation center, leaving Lakewood as the only one.
“The City has not completed any recent studies related to the current Housing Navigation Center proposal. Lakewood has partnered with RecoveryWorks to analyze the services, staffing and long-term funding needed to operate the Housing Navigation Center, as they are the experts in this space. A final operation and development budget is being finalized now with assistance from RecoveryWorks and Division of Housing and will be submitted to the Division of Housing prior to grant award in 2024.”
Request Lakewood answer, November 2023
A $40 million commitment may be worth a public conversation on whether residents would like to follow the Denver or the Colorado Springs model.
Unlike a construction contract, there was no competitive bid necessary for this spending.
Crime prevention is a leading concern in Lakewood and yet there was at least triple the amount of public discussion over bike and pedestrian infrastructure than there was over crime. Why? As resident-generated news, the Lakewood Informer tries to find out, starting with an examination of the new police philosophy that residents heard about for the first time in a budgeting meeting.
From the Lakewood Community Survey. Number of residents choosing this as the MOST IMPORTANT issue identified in dark green.
Do you trust in the police? Is lack of trust the root of all crime? Can we have effective crime prevention by increased trust initiatives? Who do you need trust? to do what? when? Who do police need to trust? It turns out, all those questions are on the table once residents start thinking about it so we should start thinking about what we, as a community, want to see.
Guest panelists: Zane Gordon, Anita Springsteen, Alex Plotkin
Discussion Topics:
– Is there a link between trust and crime?
– Does the City council reject what citizens think? (approx minute 6)
– Does improving trust address the root problem?
– Is lack of transparency the root problem? (approx minute 4)
– Should police handle mental health and/or drug related issues?
– Should the handling of mental health/drug related issues be integrated into police work?
– Or should mental health/drug issues be handled by a separate professional?
– Is transparency an important part of trust?
– Does transparency build trust?
– Is there a leadership deficiency at City Council? (which is causing police related issues)
– Council vs Police? Is there or should there be a “co-operative” connection; or should the Police be totally independent from the City Council? (like City of Morrison’s ex=-police chief.)
– Are Lakewood police ignoring Victim Rights in favor of perpetrator/offender’s rights?
– Conclusion: there is no correlation between trust and reduced crime.
Highlighted Quotes:
(Links included to hear that part of the conversation)
Plotkin: I am worried that people are looking at the pretties and not looking at the core issues like what is causing the lack of trust and what is causing the increase in crime.
Springsteen: At its core its a good idea to have more interaction between police and citizens. What I have seen in four years on Council is that there’s a complete rejection of interaction with the public.
Gordon: I like the idea of community engagement… but these are one on one relationships that take a long time to build… how to systemize this.
Springsteen: A lot of people don’t feel safe with the crime itself, and a lot of people don’t feel safe with the police themselves. … I feel like mental health has not been addressed … I’ve been pushing the STAR program.
Plotkin: Should the police be handling the mental health situations … maybe there should be separate departments but closely coordinated.
Springsteen: Having witnessed the police in action, if the Police Chief would have been willing to talk to me about my experience, I think I could have shed light a lot of light on what’s going wrong. Springsteen shares personal experiences with police.
Gordon: You have broken trust as the victim, as opposed to someone worried about excess force being used… it’s important to recognize there are two different conversations. Gordon shares personal experiences with police. Closure is what’s needed.
Springsteen: The City and County have a failure to follow-up with victims and don’t inform them. Springsteen shares her personal experience with use of excessive force.
Plotkin: The theme seems to be that we need a team of people to respond. A culture needs to be addressed, how are we going to present ourselves to the public …. and actually have public input not just a dashboard.
Springsteen: The frustrating thing with being on Council was trying to have this public conversation and being met with a brick wall. The Council itself was not willing to talk.
Gordon: The jury is out on using social workers in these situations. It’s been tried since the 1920’s. There’s the STAR program and CAHOOTS. These programs work and lots of examples of where it’s crashed and burned, so it’s a fragile system.
Plotkin: When the city sees that you will not be placated, you become persona non grata. There is no good input process to truly talk to the community. You will not just have trust automatically.
Springsteen: Transparency is such an important part of trust. The City seems to hide things, even if they don’t have to. How do we get to the root of the problem when we can’t have the conversation?
Gordon: Sounds like there is a leadership deficiency at the city level, percolating down to multiple departments, not just police. Sounds like there is no foundation to build trust with the police.
Plotkin: That’s what I meant by culture. You have to foster a culture where people feel empowered to ask questions and get answers.
Gordon: There’s a difference between leadership and a boss. What is the stoppage that the powers to be are not allowing true leaderhip to take root. Trust in police and justice served cannot happen without solid foundation.
Springsteen: I like to hear that [the police chief] wants to try something new. But I question what kind of pushback he will get from the force and up the ranks. We’ve had stagnant city leadership for 13 years.
Springsteen: We are facing some challenges that we haven’t had in the past. Homeless are spending the night in the park now. Car windows are broken out. People can’t ride bikes in the park because of the homeless. These are hard to address.
Gordon: We never really discusssed trust reducing crime. No one really thought there was a correlation.
Everyone had a different definition of trust or different issue to address. This will be a continuing conversation.
The following is a brief synopsis of some projects highlighted in Lakewood, Colorado’s 2024 budget discussions, including some apparent policies and assumptions residents may not know about.
Mill levy:
Council Member Janssen motioned for a reduction in the mill levy, a unique local government solution which would counteract some of the increase in Jefferson County property valuations. The Council majority agreed with city plans for the “windfall” of increased funds and argued that an individual resident’s return was not worth enough to consider. A counter-proposal for lesser reduction eventually passed that proponents lauded as revenue neutral. However, the revenue analysis was new information for Council and residents presented at the meeting. The result was misunderstandings in what revenue neutral meant; in this case, it meant budget neutral, or enough revenue to cover increased spending. Revenue still increased over the limit set in charter (see section 12.12).
There was also some debate regarding the accuracy of the projected revenues. Lakewood’s budget reflected an 11% increase in property valuations, although the actual increase was anticipated to be about double that. The city did not adjust that number so the revenue to the city may be greater than the budget reflected at the time of budget and mil levy certification.
The Finance Department reported that Lakewood is no longer following City Charter but rather they are following TABOR in relation to revenue caps. If true, this presents an opportunity for Lakewood to clean up existing conflicts.
RTD Bridge:
Council Member Olver highlighted an $800,000 line item to repair the lights for the RTD signature bridge crossing over 6th Avenue. The lights were originally an RTD responsibility. The majority of Council argued that people enjoyed the lights and that as the signature bridge, the City should complete RTD’s project. The financial officer said that keeping the budget line item could act as a placeholder if city staff were to delay the project or bring it back to the Council for approval. No motion was made to bring it to a later meeting for discussion, however the item did stay in the budget. (Note: another bridge, with similar budget and also in ward 4, will not be repaired for park users, despite 290 people signing a petition.)
Separated Bike Lanes:
$900,000 is budgeted for separated bike lanes. City Council has not discussed or approved this specific initiative before. Previous efforts to engage Council were ignored. During the budget meeting, the Council majority made references to approving what staff was planning, even without bringing it to public attention. Although there were arguments for/against the perceived benefits of the lanes, overall the argument was whether it was worth separated bikes lanes that don’t form a continuous path. Alternatives include focusing on connectivity, an alternative that city staff did not agree with. Separated bike lanes are not specifically mentioned in the 2018 Master Plan, however connectivity is. No discussion occurred about separate funding for this transportation system that is used by <1% of people as a daily mode of transportation. The 2018 Master Plan connectivity priorities appear abandoned and no updates are available on the status of the plan’s goals.
Dry Gulch:
Dry Gulch Improvements are a new project to address development that predates Lakewood. As the Public Works Director reports, the vast majority of $25 million will go towards this is ambitious project that is akin to the Army Corps of Engineers holding back the Mississippi. Dry Gulch was built on land that was already cleared and easy to develop because it was along the level land of the floodplain. Just like building on the Mississippi, or neighborhoods that were built on landslides, in the past those kinds of hazardous decisions were left to individual risk and responsibility. However, enough time has passed that owners have forgotten the decision to build in a natural hazard zone and they focus instead on the ability of government to raise money.
No economic business case was presented as to what returns the city anticipates as a result to these improvements, but there are some obvious reasons for the project, such as flooding “harms the local economy.” Like the separated bike lanes, this project is being treated more as a right than a business plan by the city, i.e. a giveaway rather than an investment.
This analysis is particularly important in light of the City Councilor arguments that a mil levy decrease is not “equitable” because only the people who have to pay property tax would benefit from a decrease. Many of the projects the City is involved with are not equitable, meaning that the certain segments of Lakewood will enjoy more benefits than others.
Sidewalks:
$5 million is budgeted for sidewalk improvements or creation. Some neighborhoods in Lakewood were developed with sidewalks in place. The cost of those sidewalks were included in the price of the home. Other neighborhoods were not developed with sidewalks, often at lesser cost to the home price. Today, residents only see the disparity that some neighborhoods have sidewalks while others don’t. Lakewood has adopted a city initiative to increase the number and connectivity of Lakewood, essentially having one neighborhood subsize another neighborhood’s sidewalks, while hopefully increasing the value of the neighborhood and city. (Note: see developer reimbursement agreements for more recent discussions on initial infrastructure costs). New sidewalk creation will triple over the next two years, at a two-year cost of $7 million from Capital Improvement Funds and an addition $2.8 million from TABOR funds.
Sustainability:
The biggest news for sustainability was $660,00 for charging stations to accommodate Lakewood’s change to an electric vehicle fleet. The number of charging stations will continue to increase and be available to the public. Lakewood is pursuing an aggressive sustainability agenda with individual projects being adopted through staff initiative rather than Council vote.
The Planning Department will also be adding two sustainability staff members and a Homeless Services Coordinator.
Parks:
Park spending came with an emphasis on how TABOR funds will be used to expand parks.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Without details, the Director gave notice that Parks will also start looking at condensing or efficiency operations that may include closing open space/parks/pools, public safety and recreation centers. (see September 18 meeting, 1hr 19 min). This will be an item for residents to watch closely. Closing centers has not been part of the public discussion yet, so it is not clear if this is a necessary item or will possibly be a future TABOR discussion.
An interesting sidenote: during the Belmar Park development discussions, residents found out that previous City Councils determined that Lakewood had enough parks and therefore provided options for developers to pay a fee instead of dedicating park land. TABOR funds were used to purchase 128.8 acres of new parkland, showing an average of $61,731/acre were spent. That price is about half of what Lakewood was charging developers in lieu of dedicating land. The parks process shows an opportunity for City Council to clean up conflicting ordinances; if Lakewood doesn’t need new parks, as per ordinance, then new purchases could be allowed only with increased justification.
Homeless:
Lakewood will develop a permanent extreme weather shelter. Definitions for “extreme” are already being blurred, with Council Member Franks asking about using for more days. This entire item is controversial, not only because of the undiscussed notion of enabling or protecting people, but because Lakewood will be converting existing buildings for use as a shelter, none of which were intended for this use. City Council had to approve a special suspension of the building codes they just passed or else the shelter would not be possible. This project highlights the expense of the new building codes and shows they aren’t really necessary.
Lakewood will also be the recipient of funds that will go to RecoveryWorks for them to build a new navigation center in Lakewood that has permanent and temporary resources for the homeless. Residents can get an idea of what sort of policies that project will entail by looking at current support policies. Lakewood has not had the public discussion of whether to offer supportive services more like Colorado Springs or more like Denver.
The City has budgeted $100,000 for encampment cleanup.
Maintenance Campus:
A new maintenance campus will cost $7 million over the next two years. This project will require land acquisition.
Discretionary Spending
Governments spend money on things their residents need or have a right to. For example, an administration building. Residents may argue on how fancy the building is, but no one argues that a building is necessary.
In contrast, many of the project detailed above are discretionary. For example, Lakewood already has the parks, but now is spending on improvements. Department heads highlighted the projects accomplished with TABOR funds. Lakewood does not break out discretionary spending per se, but this could be a useful distinction in future.
New projects were chosen based on city staff’s best guess as to what residents would like to see. All projects could be valuable additions to the city if they were accomplished as part of a long-term strategy. For example, does Lakewood plan on connecting to the surrounding areas with bike lanes in order to attract the bike community to live and work here? Or is the city trying to have a few picture-worthy lanes to virtue signal (which may attract the same people without increasing usability).
The Budget and Audit Board, made of three Council Members and three Lakewood residents. The meetings are not video-recorded and the sound in the room has not been updated. Unlike other meetings, residents have to CORA these audio-recordings.
Lakewood residents urged City Council to uphold City rules that developments must fit in with the existing neighborhood. Citing the City’s own Municipal Code, residents helped write a resolution that would enforce both Lakewood’s long-term planning and zoning and the spirit of the Comprehensive Plan. The majority of City Council rejected the resolution, citing legal interpretations, while acknowledging the efforts of residents.
The meeting started in an unusual fashion, with public comment being moved until after a long budget session. The mayor warned repeatedly that he would enforce decorum and he had police officers standing by if residents continued clapping.
Claims that moving public comment is normal for budget meetings have been proved false (see 2022 and 2021). However, it is normal procedure to have comment close to the relevant agenda item, which in this case was after the budget. This simple move, set the stage for misunderstandings and hard feelings after residents had to wait hours to speak.
The issue involves developing private land adjacent to Belmar Park. Due to a zoning change in 2012, the land can be developed as a much higher-density multi-family development than the street was originally intended for. In combination with Lakewood’s decreased parking requirement (1.5 parking spots per unit), residents expressed worries that this is a perfect storm of congestion (see Lakewood’s parking study where residents cite similar parking problems caused by inadequate parking near Abrusci’s, Manning’s and Colorado Christian University).
In response, Lakewood has said that the development plans are legal.
Although some residents continued to argue that legal doesn’t make it right, others turned to areas where use of City discretion was involved. For example, developers have had the option to pay a fee instead of dedicating land to parks. According to L.M.C. 14.16.010, fees are “…at the discretion of the Community Resources Director (Director).”
“If the Director determines that a land dedication in accordance with this chapter would not serve the public interest, the Director may require payment of a fee in lieu of the dedication”
L.M.C. 14.16.050 shows that land adjacent to existing parks is eligible for park dedication.
According to Denver7, a Lakewood spokesperson has said that fee-in-lieu “is particularly allowed for developments that are less than 15 acres.” Lakewood codes have examples of land dedication for 10 acres. The option is particularly useful for smaller developments, if the Director found that a land dedication would not serve the public interest.
Legal counsel for the City advised that accepting a land dedication would require rewriting the ordinance. (Note: legal advice being offered during the meeting is also not typical.) No specifics as to what was against ordinance were offered. Legal counsel also advised that City Council could not direct the City Manager in any actions, which the resident resolution proposed. The City has previously published an article that only with a vote of the majority of Council can the City act on Council actions.
The mayor did not allow a vote on the motion. Several Council Members briefly rallied around a proclamation of support for the residents. However, the majority of Council did not support any discussion or action by Council in the future on this issue.
In the end, there was 1 hour and 40 minutes of public comment. There was 1 hour and 30 minutes of speeches by City Council explaining their positions on the resolution but no minds appeared to be changed.
Related lessons residents learned:
Lakewood uses a minimum tree replacement method rather than more modern methods.
A migratory waterfowl specialist testified that Belmar Park has an higher variety of ducks than anywhere he’s seen.
Lakewood does not have emergency traffic and/or evacuation planning requirements.
Per Lakewood’s open-space requirements, no raw land is included or will be purchased for open space. However, sidewalks, the dumpster pick-up area, electrical transformer access areas and various internal areas of the building are being classified as open space as per page 27 of the site plan.
The fee-in-lieu-of-land option is required to be reviewed by City Council no later than December 2023. It has not yet been scheduled.
The fee option was started because City Council determined Lakewood already had enough parks.
The Council Policies and Procedures override City Charter in the matter of making motions, so that a Council Member cannot make a motion without agreement of a majority of Council.
My eyes have been opened to how many times city officials said there was robust public engagement to justify projects and spending. As someone who has organized public input, and just this week saw a massive outpouring of public engagement on the Belmar Park development, I wondered how the city defined ‘robust engagement’.
It turns out, resident engagement numbers are not much different from City engagement numbers.
Why this should matter to you? Because resident-backed projects are not considered for approval even when they clearly have support.
Let’s look at the example of Wright Street Park, which was lauded for its public engagement. According to the city, “Outreach for these meetings included a postcard to any resident residing within 1,000 feet of the park and door to door engagement with the nearby apartment complex managers. We [Lakewood] also share all of our projects on Lakewood city channels including the Friday Report, Lakewood 8, social media, our e-newsletters and Nextdoor.”
The survey for Wright St included about 210 respondents. There is no record of how many came to an in-person meeting but about 50 watched the video and 23 submitted ideas so 200 is a good estimate.
Lakewood residents have whipped up the support of 100s of people, even without money to spend or dedicated staff. However, they don’t get the same results. Why does Lakewood’s engagement process take priority and resident engagement doesn’t?
How many times have residents heard, “We [the city] hear you but we also have to listen to other residents who are not here.”
Well, now you know that when the city wants to hear the answer, 200 people is enough.
Residents that have organized hundreds of people have already had their eyes opened. Without the benefit of paid staff and resources that the city has, they’ve reached the same levels of engagement the city applauds. Why then are residents so frequently dissatisfied?
However, thinking it through, even the engagement for Wright St didn’t matter. The city didn’t listen to people, it USED them. The city:
DID NOT ASK “would residents rather have Wright Street Park developed or other projects residents have been asking for that the city neglected?”
DID NOT ADD “We are using resident TABOR funds for this project because the city achieved other goals… would residents like the money back now or should the city keep spending?”
DID NOT EVEN ASK “This park has been enjoyed as is for decades so should it stay that way or should the city commit to increased future maintenance costs?”
By responding to such a survey, residents have already agreed to the underlying premise that the city is right to develop this project and that’s all they really wanted – approval of the idea. That approval was then quoted at a budget meeting as if residents had been asked for fund approval or project approval. They were not.
Does the city even recognize that their “engagement” is often lobbying in disguise? They think, “Yay! How can we spend your money here?” while residents over there are begging for restoration of services and being absolutely ignored. But by going through this engagement process, every department head can come to a budget meeting and show the shiny new project they spent TABOR funds on, a silent request for more, leaving unsaid all the old projects they ignored.
So, in a way, the numbers never matter because the city will not ask unbiased and non-leading questions.
When the City cites ‘robust engagement’ to have their projects approved, were the residents truly engaged or just sought out for approval? No wonder resident-initiated engagement doesn’t get results.
Discussing the recent budget proposal, Lakewood Police Chief Smith went through his policing philosophy to explain changes to the budget. The base of this philosophy was enacted by President Obama, called 21st Century Policing. At its core, the policy is about building trust in police. Crime is addressed more indirectly, not as the crime itself (i.e. shoplifting) but by addressing the root cause of the crime (i.e. what made a person shoplift).
In Lakewood, there are more conversations about crime than trust in police. Evidence suggests these may be two different conversations. It is now eight years since the Obama-era policy was issued. This author could find zero studies to show crime reduction as a result of these policies. The National Policing Institute issued a 5-year report that showed limited success in select areas, not including crime. For example, police departments that started reporting data via an online dashboard showed some success in increased transparency. This type of dashboard is a national trend; see Tucson, Arizona for an example. Other cities showed increased trust, as defined by positive feeling for, or lack of being threatened by police, after a brief visit. There were not many departments still using the policing report guidelines after five years so the effects were not able to be studied further.
There was one notable outcome in Louisville, Kentucky, which implemented the strategy early and gained accolades from the White House. However, an incident in later years, caused the approval to be rescinded. Follow-up research found that it was not the fault of the White House policy, but rather it was the fault of the police department which did not implement the strategy correctly.
The Louisville study results concluded that the police could not be relied upon to correctly implement the required police reform. The 5-year report also came to a similar conclusion, finding that improper implementation by the police was the fault, not the policy.
Lakewood has not had a public conversation about what it will be doing differently than places like Louisville or Tucson that may result in success. How can Lakewood be the first police department to successfully implement these reforms to achieve trust and lower crime?
Under the new Lakewood guidelines, five police officer positions will be transitioned to civilian positions (ex. behavioral health staff). Filling five less police officer positions also decreases the time needed for recruiting, which is an ongoing challenge in today’s environment.
Another Lakewood goal is to have officers spend 33% of their time on proactive policing, i.e. knocking on doors in a friendly way, to increase resident trust. According to Police Chief Smith, these proactive measures will help stop crime before it starts. Following 21st Century practices, the theory is that “crime reduction will happen through engagement.”
As to the problems already occurring, this approach may be less effective. In problem areas, the Chief suggests saturated, targeted patrols, with police presence acting as a deterrent. Lakewood residents have already noticed the decreased effectiveness of patrols, claiming the police pass by problem areas without stopping.
Police reform measures will be a new policy for Lakewood. Although policy in Lakewood is set by City Council, department heads are allowed broad leeway in operational strategies. By implementing the policy through the budget, a public discussion format was bypassed. A public discussion about police reform would have alerted many residents to the change. As it stands, Council Members will vote on the budget, rather than the important discussion of police policy. (Note: Read here to see how the majority of council turned down multiple requests for public safety discussions.)
Lakewood has the opportunity to learn from other cities which have had the same problem and have tried some of these policies. Even without an official study, there is plenty of evidence that this is a complicated subject. For example, in this video from Philadelphia, people discuss the effects these policies have had in other areas (select quotes below).
“People are shooting up on corners [the police] drive right by.” … “People are arrested for buying drugs, they just take you downtown and let you go. Talk to you about rehab and stuff and let you go.”
The next problem cities like Philadelphia and San Diego have is when public perception switches from the city being part of the solution to being part of the problem.
“[the city] enables it. They feed them, they clothe them. They aren’t hitting their rock bottom.”
Unfortunately, this circles right around to the building of trust that Chief Smith is trying to solve.
