LAKEWOOD INFORMER

By Lenore Herskovitz On January 28, 2023 City Council held their Annual Planning Meeting to establish their strategic goals and priorities for the upcoming year. Two facilitators from Point b(e) Strategies assisted in this process. Their completed report is provided in the PDF at the end of this piece. The last part of the facilitators’ document requests that each councilor set up a rank order of goals based on his/her perception of the needs of their communities. Once the goals were ranked, the final compilation would be presented to the public. The individual rankings were  done through Survey Monkey and the results were unavailable to the public. However, through several CORA requests and phone calls I was able to obtain the City’s final report. An email from staff directed me to a new website with instructions to click on each goal to show tasks and status (see https://lakewood.clearpointstrategy.com/) OBSERVATIONS FROM CITY WEBSITE GOALS Re: Secure, Inclusive, and Affordable Neighborhoods Task: Add inclusionary zoning to an upcoming Housing Policy Commission agenda and then follow-up with a study session. FACT: Last spring this topic was scheduled for discussion by the Development Dialogue Committee. The day before the meeting, the majority of City Council members voted to disband the committee claiming it was redundant because the Housing Policy Commission would be working on this. To this date, inclusionary zoning has been ignored while the Commission spent the past year focused on the recently passed Short Term Rental policy. Re: Effective, Accountable, Transparent, and...

*Correction 4/14/23: Councilor Able attended the full meeting, including data from Councilor Olver The March 20, 2023 Lakewood City Council meeting was to study multi-modal transportation; specifically bike lanes. The session included a presentation by staff for Council consideration. Council Member Rich Olver, an experienced biker, brought additional data in the form of pictures of specific bike lane hazards. Rather than “study” this data that was “outside of our norm”, multiple members of City Council and the City Manager appeared to leave the meeting in silent protest. Summary of the meeting The presentation by staff included an overview of the advantages of biking, biking lanes, and options for bike lane creation. According to Max E. Kirschbaum, Director of Public Works, the challenges that Lakewood faces include “Retrofitting an existing street can often require widening.” Depending on the treatment, a bike lane could cost $500,000 per mile. The next step for this project would be to identify priorities and establish a budget. Several corridors are considered ready for “quick action”, such as existing bike lanes that just need vertical separation, or roads that are wide enough. Following the presentation, Council Members had requests to prioritize their wards, requests to look into grant money and mention of some challenges to bike lanes. Discussion was limited to these individual comments. Silent Protest Council Member Olver prepared some slides to show specific problems in Lakewood at the end of the meeting. However, Mayor Paul advised the Council that it is “outside of our norm”...

Two Colorado bills were under scrutiny at the Lakewood legislative committee meeting April 3. HB23-1190 Affordable Housing Right of First Refusal: Concerning a right of first refusal to purchase qualifying multifamily residential property by a local government. This bill was first discussed at the last legislative committee meeting where votes were split on how to proceed. Councilors Stewart and Shahrezaei were leaning toward support, Janssen leaning to oppose and Vincent deliberating. At that time, Councilor Stewart had discussed the issue with city staff who said Lakewood did not need this tool right now, but Stewart said it might be good to have the tool available. An official vote on 1190 was postponed until the next meeting. However, the next committee meeting was a special meeting called by Council Member and Legislative Committee Chair Rebekah Stewart. Her stated intention was to discuss SB23-213. Councilor Janssen stated that she had emailed about 1190, and noted the minute mark that the committee agreed in the last meeting to discuss 1190. Janssen made a motion to oppose HB23-1190. The motion failed 3-2, with Janssen and Olver in favor (to oppose), and Stewart, Shahrezaei, and Vincent opposed. HB23-1190 is planned for Senate committee vote the following day (April 4). HB23-1190 has passed the House committee with Lakewood taking a “Monitor” position. SB23-213 is Governor Polis’ Land Use bill seeks to implement statewide zoning and land use regulations. That power currently resides locally. Lakewood typically allows the Colorado Municipal League (CML) to lobby for the city,...

The March 13th Lakewood City Council meeting included 3 hours of public comment, mostly regarding short-term rentals (STRs). People spoke both for and against STRs. However, the biggest reveal was that ALL sides spoke about the lack of enforcement of current ordinances, which leads to speculation of how new measures, like censure, may be implemented. Public comment shows residents perplexed at the city allowing illegal STRs for years.  However, the city argues STRs are not illegal because the words “short-term rental” cannot be found in ordinance, so they have never stopped the activity. Residents argue that STRs are commercial lodging, like hotels, that has long been banned in Lakewood through zoning.   At one point, “The [Lakewood] Planning Department determined that short term rentals are most closely related to Bed and Breakfast, which is only allowed in certain residential zone districts, with a Special Use Permit. This action banned short-term rentals in the City of Lakewood, unless reviewed and approved via the Special Use Permit Process, which requires a public hearing in front of the Planning Commission.“ (see pg 4 of the 2018 memo for more details) The STR ban was never enforced. No member of the public spoke with confidence that the city will enforce these new ordinances either.  It is important to remember that there are advantages to STRs. However, when you start so far below the trust curve, at the first sign of a problem, people will not be patient while waiting for a resolution. They will...

Lakewood City Council meeting on March 13th included 3 hours of public comment, mostly regarding short-term rentals. Rather than summarizing the arguments, this post links to a representative video for the various arguments. Argument AGAINST ALL STRs. Comments by Mr Josh (?), starting at the 1:19 mark… Argument IN FAVOR of OWNER-OCCUPIED STRs. Comments by unknown starting at 1:58 mark… IN FAVOR of COUNCIL/COMMUNITY process. Comments by Imara at 2 hr mark…. IN FAVOR of INVESTOR-OWNED STRs. Comments by Mr. Smith at 2:42 mark To see the resulting short-term rental ordinance, see the city’s website. Any person who does not want to be highlighted on LakewoodInformer can email us for removal. Thank you all for your public involvement.