Land Taken by Eminent Domain Plagued by Crime – Ignored
The owners of Lakewood affordable housing are plagued by crime that is ruining their business and driving residents away. A piece of their property was taken by Lakewood in 2022 through eminent domain to be used as a bike path. Now that bike path, along RTD tracks, is home to so much illegal activity that the people living nearby are leaving their affordable housing to go elsewhere. Property owners made another plea to City Council on August 26 asking for police enforcement. Property owners met with RTD on September 9 and city representatives accepted the invitation to attend. However, no new actions or greater enforcement was promised. Property owners were urged to keep calling but their calls will remain a low priority since Lakewood does not prioritize drug use or vagrancy.
“We have Section 8 people who do not want to live at our property and are moving out. We have higher turnover and vacancy costs. We are being put out of business by the issues going on across the street. Our business is to help and provide affordable housing.” – Property owner
The owners have made hundreds of calls to police in the last years. The police are involved in several incidents but say their hands are tied so they try and disperse the people loitering, who then return and continue their activities, leaving evidence of drug use and drug deals on the property.
City Council defends programs of selective enforcement or non-enforcement. These programs nullify the law, leaving people like these owners to watch their affordable housing become uninhabitable. Council has chosen to keep laws on the books that the city will not enforce.
The Zephyr property used to have a valuable amenity, being on a quiet, dead-end street near the lightrail. That has changed.
“…now it’s drugs and illegal activity. This isn’t watching people smoking weed. This is watching people doing hard drugs and bad things. All day every day.” – Property owner
Unfortunately, this is not the first time these property owners have had to come before City Council. They came a year ago to plea for help and came once before that. They have been ignored for years. Points West still operates out of Lakewood to provide safe drug use material with county funding. (Read more about these complaints in Lakewood Informer news)
Lakewood police told property owners that calls on infractions involving illicit drug use and vagrancy are a low priority call. On the day of the RTD meeting, RTD and Lakewood officials came to the property to find the remains of a campfire that vagrants had set the night before. Lakewood considers the space a park and allows people to stay. RTD also allows people to stay as long as needed.
Lakewood does not prioritize drug use or vagrancy. – Policy of Lakewood Police as explained to property owners
Note: Lakewood City Council supports this unofficial decriminalization of drug use and vagrancy out of compassion for the homeless.
Watch the full video testimony here (minute mark 42:23):
Transcript (emphasis added):
We’re the owners and managers of 1320, 1330 Zephyr Street. We’re a family-owned business that was started in 1991. Over the last 10 years we’ve produced a portfolio of apartments, mostly in West Denver and in Lakewood. We currently own more than 300 units in Lakewood, and multiple properties along the light rail station. We take pride in providing safe, clean, affordable housing, and we are committed community partners, striving to make a positive impact. In the community we operate.
More than a third of our tenants are on Section 8 housing vouchers.
Our main focus today is the challenges of the transit population along Wadsworth Station specifically, that is affecting Zephyr Street and multiple properties along the light rail station. We purchased the Zephyr apartments in 2016. We improved the property investing in the units, common area, and had a stable, quiet property, um, that families enjoyed living in.
In 2022, the City of Lakewood came and took part of the property via eminent domain to create a larger public walkway and bike path, and they took valuable parking from our residents. Since then, we’ve had ongoing issues with the transit population along the light rail that was once a valuable amenity to our tenants. Here’s our property, highlighted in green, the Wadsworth station is one block to the east of the picture, highlighted in yellow is the section that was eminent domain from our property.
Here is the southeast, southwest corner of our property, looking to the east of the light rail station is 2 blocks um past our property, um, and this shows the area that was eminent domain.
I’m gonna just talk about some of the safety concerns and issues that we have since the property was taken this larger walkway, um, sits behind a chain link fence from our property and our tenants no longer feel safe. This is a place that was a nice area. The street dead ends there. And so a nice public space and it’s now drugs and illegal activity. This isn’t watching people smoking weed. This is watching people doing hard drugs and bad things. All day every day. People don’t want their kids to use the bike path. Tenants don’t feel comfortable going and using the public transportation and light rail.
What was once an amenity is now a nuisance.
We’ve constant trespassing and public intoxication. So we have people that come onto our side and they come on people’s balconies, they break into our property in common area. We’ve had theft of our property of our tenant’s property and vehicles. With people using the bathroom out of the bathroom. People doing Schedule One drugs and doing other things that nobody wants to see all day every day at their apartment. It’s a health and safety concern. They’re creating trash constantly, so the trash gets in between this fence and is littered onto our property. So WE have to go pick up needles and, and spend time and money, to make a safe place for our tenants in our community, which is our goal as a landlord.
The unauthorized vehicle access.
We have limited parking spaces in our property and now people literally come and park illegally at our property to sell drugs at this location.
The conduct is that we have cars that are left and abandoned there. We do have the police involved and they’ve come and made some arrests and done some things, but they really, if you talk to the police, their hands are tied and they tell people to kind of move along and people are back shortly thereafter. People continue to enter our property, the criminal activity and drug use is consistent, and I mean, these are pictures of this is a guy on our property passed out. I mean, literally needs help. This is just showing from a car the quantity of people that gather here. Some of these are videos that you play, but you guys get the idea. I mean, there is a constant stream of people here and as landlords on the other side of the fence. We can’t, there’s only so much that we can do. We’ve called the police 100 times in the last year, more than I think, 45 times since April. You can’t see these police reports, but there’s all the things happening at the property, fireworks, drugs, breaking and entering, theft.
You know, as a property owner, we think we have a responsibility, and our tenants have a responsibility to the public space. Um, they need to take care of the public space. They shouldn’t endanger the life of people around the area. They shouldn’t conduct property damage or destruction, or they shouldn’t materially harm or threaten people or properties, health, safety and welfare. And this happens every single day to the tenants at our property, from the people who are right there on the other side of the fence, and,
We feel like the city has a responsibility to uphold the same standards that we would want to uphold as a landlord in our private property on your private property, and it’s just not being done today.
We want to be a good neighbor. We want to help out, but there’s a situation right now where it’s. We can’t go and arrest people on the other side of the fence like we could play, you know, Hansen bop like and we put up bigger lights. They just have a nighttime party now, like I mean, we, we’re as a landlord, spending time and money, we’ve installed lighting, cameras. We’ve hired security that comes, we constantly contact you guys. This is my first time speaking with you guys. I believe this is Elon’s 3rd time. We’ve reached out to RTD. We actually have a meeting set up with RTD.
But we have a request for action. We want to be able to use our walking and bike path and our public transportation, and it shouldn’t be a place that people can do illegal activities, camp and have vagrancy. It makes it difficult for people to ride their bikes around town, to go and use mass transit. And so how do we move people in a safe and, and respectful way.
The Action Center is a quarter of a mile from our property. Involving the action center and getting these people real help. Installation of signs that just say no loitering camping or noise violations maybe creating a quiet hours where after certain times, people can’t congregate in these areas.
We would ask the city, it’s your fence, not our fence to just install a cover or barrier like you’d have at a construction site. So people don’t have to watch people doing bad things all day every day with their families and their kids, I think an increased police and security presence and we’re in Ward 2.
I know that we’ve messaged, I know there’s things happening on your guys’ side, you know. We’re,
We want to be a team player. We’ll donate our time and effort to help. We’ll donate our money. We want to make this a place that people want to live and stay, be with their families.
We have Section 8 people who do not want to live at our property and are moving out. We have higher turnover and vacancy costs. We are being put out of business by the issues going on across the street. Our business is to help and provide affordable housing.
We need action. I know Elon’s come three times. I don’t know what has to happen. I know this is not just in this area of the city, it’s in a lot of areas of the city, but in these areas that are specifically right by where mass transit is, that people should be using to take to work should be a predominant focus of the city, of what we can do and what we can help.
In a city council it’s great to have ideas and meetings, but we need action to solve the problems and issues in front of us. So thank, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time. We have tons of pictures and all kinds of really terrible stuff. I, I don’t think the videos are playing, but at the end of the day, I think you guys get the idea, you don’t need to see the pictures and videos we have, but they are everything and it’s sad to see it happen to the community in the area and we’d like to invite you out to the meeting with RTD. If you would like to attend, please let us know. We’re meeting the Deputy Chief Stephen, I’m forgetting his name, of RTD on September 9th at 10 a.m. and so we welcome anybody to come and see the issue and what’s going on there, um. And uh and talk about solutions and problems that we can take as, uh, private and public partners to help the issue. Thank you.