From SaveBelmarPark.com Here is more of the cloudy history from the strange Book of Belmar. This has come to light due to the attention to detail provided by Kairoi’s excellent attorneys at the Brownstein law firm in their court filing with Jefferson County District Court. Please notice the map above. The green area represents Belmar Park. The two red blocks represent the two parcels of land that comprise the Irongate Office Complex. The red square on the left is 777 S Yarrow Street. The red rectangle on the right is 777 S Wadsworth Boulevard. The developer plans to build at least 411 apartments at 777 S Yarrow within the red square on the left. An additional 650-800 apartments are planned within the rectangle on the right at 777 S Wadsworth. How will they construct so many units at 777 S Wadsworth? By building TWO 12-STORY TOWERS. Two key points to consider. 1) Kairoi always planned to develop BOTH Irongate parcels. Namely, 777 S Yarrow Street and 777 S Wadsworth Blvd shown above. This point is established by numerous statements in the legal brief filed on behalf of the developer including that Kairoi submitted a formal letter of intent to purchase both properties way back on October 9, 2020. The two parcels are conveniently located directly across the street from each other and are both part of the Irongate office complex as shown on the map above. Yet incredibly, the developer has succeeded in excluding the S Wadsworth location from consideration...
Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
Resident generated news about Lakewood, Colorado
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From Save Open Space Lakewood The saga over the future of the Belmar Park project could be nearing its final chapter depending on the outcome of the Lakewood City Council meeting Monday, February 24, at 7pm in Council Chambers. Council will vote on whether or not 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. Lakewood, like many communities, adopted an ordinance requiring developers of large residential projects to dedicate a portion of land to the City for parks and open space. Lakewood’s first version was in 1983. Then in 2018 the ordinance was updated to encourage more such donations. A separate provision also was adopted, requiring the code to be reviewed “by December 31, 2023.” That date came and went without the required review, despite the outcry from the community that no such dedications had occurred since 2013. Between 2013 and 2023, City Council heard from multiple neighborhoods that opposed Lakewood’s relentless drive to become a concrete city. They expressed concerns over problem developments with little or no green space, all of which had paid a fee in lieu of property dedication. Community members were appalled when they learned that Lakewood had secretly ushered through approval of a behemoth luxury apartment building adjacent to Belmar Park. For months, they approached Council asking for the development to be modified and for months their pleas were ignored. As a result, the SOS Lakewood Green Initiative was launched in...
ConsumerAffairs recently surveyed 30 most populated cities in Colorado. Lakewood ranked 23 out of 30 overall, and ranked as one of the most unsafe. The best and worst Colorado cities to move to in 2025, according to new report
Another Lakewood misinformation campaign bites the dust. For years Lakewood has been pushing high-density growth in the name of “affordable housing”. They market this narrative to schoolteachers and civil servants. See Lakewood’s recent resolution using these exact words. However, a development presentation to the Lakewood Planning Commission introduced a new term that exposes the lie: Workforce housing Workforce Housing The consultant Lakewood hired to evaluate blight and Lakewood’s Comprehensive Plan pointed out that there was NO PLAN for increasing workforce housing in Lakewood. The emphasis on “affordable housing”, despite what Lakewood says, is different from workforce housing. No matter how poorly teachers and civil servants get paid, they get paid more than anyone living on the streets. Affordable housing in Lakewood will mean a government-run program, similar to what used to be called Section 8. That is not the same as an answer to inflated housing prices for low- to median-income levels. Think about government-run affordable housing like a scholarship system for school. A person may need the financial assistance, and may not be able to go to college without it, but there are others who need it more and not enough to go around. For decades, the people most in need are those with extremely low income. Not low. Not middle-low. Not teachers and civil servants. Extremely low income. Ann Ricker, of Ricker Cunningham, is Lakewood’s blight consultant. She pointed out there was a gap in the Comprehensive Plan. She said the plan talked about affordable housing, and it...
Lakewood requires such high sustainability standards that they are almost impossible for large developments to meet. The standards are meant to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. For those developments, Lakewood accepts a fee in lieu of sustainability amenities. Lakewood is currently arguing that parkland dedication is illegal or amoral because it asks too much from developers. But Lakewood makes the same sort of demands to further its sustainability agenda. In both cases, the desire is to have development offset the environmental cost of development. The question is at what point is there so much development that the city says money is an acceptable substitute for direct environmental offsets. Note that these city mandates will continue despite any possible changes to federal funding for climate change initiatives. Achievable Goals or Ideology Lowering emissions is expensive so most people have not done it or have only done it by using rebates and subsidies. Achieving net zero emissions is even more expensive and is sometimes not achievable. For example, the city of Lakewood admits its new maintenance facility will not meet LEED standards let alone be net zero. Lakewood has set its own standards and requires that new buildings meet those standards by earning sustainability points. “net zero standards require reducing emissions to more than 90% and then only offsetting [with purchased carbon credits] the remaining 10% or less to fall in line with 1.5 °C targets.” –Wikipedia For large developments, the city admits it is almost impossible to achieve enough points. Therefore, developers...
City Council Members Jacob Labure and Paula Nystrom asked for equal representation on the Budget and Audit Board, January 27, 2025. They were denied. Only three wards will be represented on the Board. The Budget and Audit Board is vitally important for accountability. Many policies and programs that staff originate are never disclosed to the public. They only show up in funding requests. And as evidenced by the 2024 vote to de-TABOR, city staff is not often turned down. Councilor LaBure was involved in the last rewrite of the Budget Board. LaBure fought hard to get each ward representation on the Board, saying it was common practice to not only have five Councilors on the Board but to allow any Council Member to come and make comments. Now the current Board doesn’t even allow comments. Councilors Shahrezaei and Mayott-Guerrero both said that allowing that many Councilors, as worked for years, would now be unmanageable. Shahrezaei pointed out that at one point, a single councilor made 37 questions to staff and that amount of work was too hard. There is no general rule for how many questions the paid city staff should answer as part of being publicly accountable for a multi-million-dollar budget. In 2024, when Mayor Strom downsized committee sizes, then-Councilor Rich Olver was upset to be removed. Strom explained that she thought she was doing him a favor because he often didn’t have time. Olver was not present at the meeting for the initial appointments to protest. But his...
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