Tag: environment

Lakewood Residents Petition to Save Their Parks

Written by Lakewood News from Karen on .

Guest Post from Save Open Space Lakewood

Lakewood residents petition to save their parks and open space which the City likes to give away to developers. On April 27th they were at Lakewood’s Belmar Park with petitions.

Background

Local environment advocates will circulate a petition at Lakewood’s Earth Day, on Saturday, April 27, that would force the City from its arrogant behind-the-scenes approval of out-of-control developments to provide significant environmental stewardship for Lakewood.

Once certified with 6,000 required signatures, the petition becomes an initiative which Lakewood is required to vote for. If it doesn’t, it will be placed on a citywide ballot. Over one thousand signatures have already been collected in less than a month.

When: Saturday, April 27
Time: 11 AM -7 PM
Where: Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, 801 S. Yarrow St., Lakewood 80226

“It’s become clear that nothing short of this petition is going to change complacent City staff, the City Council and the Planning Commission to be responsive to citizen concerns and also supportive of preserving our parks and open space,” said Cathy Kentner, who co-created the petition with fellow longtime community activist Rhonda Peters. Both founded Save Open Space Lakewood which is organizing this all-volunteer petition effort.

The petition, titled the Lakewood Green Initiative, was inspired after the public learned Lakewood staff had worked for several years to preliminarily approve and advance the plans of Kairoi Residential, a Texas developer, for a 412-unit, 83 unit per floor, 6 story luxury apartment building with a footprint the size of two football fields which would share the eastern boundary of Belmar Park.

Belmar Park is a 132 acre beloved park in the middle of Lakewood’s growing concrete jungle. It is a peaceful haven for over 230 bird species (many protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act), abundant wildlife and innumerable human visitors.

In preliminarily approving the Kairoi plan, the City ignored its own ordinances on protecting parkland and wildlife, improving tree canopy, fighting climate change and providing affordable housing. Instead it supported the gigantic 800,000 square foot design with no buffer with the park, the elimination of 69 mature trees, and lack of serious analysis of the development’s effects on the environment and on the safety of nearby residents who can only exit on a narrow street.

The public was notified very late as if it was an afterthought. Now the City claims many elements of the project are a done deal and they lack the power to correct this.

Since this deal was initially revealed, the City has placed numerous obstacles in the way of citizen attempts to have input on the development’s
outcome. Likewise, Lakewood staff has been actively attempting to thwart approval of the petition. The latest effort was an unprecedented five-day delay. Interestingly, a few hours after a local TV reporter submitted questions to the City, the petition was promptly approved and released to Kentner.

The Initiative Summary as Set by Lakewood City Clerk

Shall the City of Lakewood Municipal Code Chapter 14.16. PARK AND OPEN SPACE DEDICATION be repealed and replaced to eliminate the option for developers to pay a fee in lieu of parkland dedication and to require the City to accept open space and land dedications for current and future developments.

Longer version: See soslakewood.org

Several years ago Kentner, who ran as an independent candidate for Mayor and has served on the Lakewood Planning Commission, successfully authored and helped pass a petition to limit population growth in Lakewood; it was subsequently approved in a citywide election.

By not following its own standards, Lakewood has effectively sold what should have been more than a dozen acres of parkland in the last decade. According to information provided by the city, Lakewood has not required land from developers since the Solterra development in 2007 and 2013.

Kentner said there appears to be a gentleman’s agreement between Lakewood and all of its developments so they are allowed to pay the City instead of providing open space.

Although citizens have long felt powerless as Lakewood approved large apartment buildings in charming neighborhoods and at the perimeter of parks, the Kairoi monolith at Belmar Park inspired several groups to work to either limit the size of the building or eliminate it entirely.

SaveBelmarPark.com is a comprehensive website that includes a petition to declare eminent domain on the land between the building and the park in order to create a buffer zone.

Save Belmar Park, Inc. has been organizing, educating and fundraising to pursue legal channels to protect the park.

Save Open Space Lakewood (SOS Lakewood) created a petition to bring these groups together to work toward a common goal of protecting Lakewood’s natural environment.

Give us your TABOR refunds, says Lakewood

Written by Lakewood News from Karen on .

Guest Post by Alex Plotkin

A city that for over a decade has not only refused to do economic development (in a true sense), but has lost jobs and is now planning to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize developers, under the guise of “economic development.”

Lakewood demographics
From Looking@Lakewood

A city that, for over a decade, has done nothing to improve the path conditions along Alameda Avenue, in Ward 4.  Nor have any improvements have been made to alleviate the traffic increases at Union and Alameda.

Unmaintained pole at crosswalk

To be fair, the city did spend an untold amount of money to add “roundabouts” on Green Mountain Drive.  Perfectly placed to create a road hazard with any amount of snow.

roundabout filled with snow

A city that has been lecturing the citizens about how the citizens should be planting trees, to cool the city, you know?  The same city that is now allowing an-out-of-state developer to destroy a much-beloved park at Belmar, while chopping down dozens of decades-old trees.

A city where for years now the recreational fields at Carmody Park are in an awful shape.  Fields where parents actually pay a fee to have their children play.

patchy grass field

They “fixed it” this year:

greener field

And this is a park that has favorable political sunshine on it.

A city, where instead of maintaining the hiking and biking trails damaged by runoff, a sign is placed, telling you to be careful.  You should see what the head of parks gets paid, though.

sign "trail damage ahead"

A city, where the City Council goes in to executive sessions, to decide on even more perks for a City Manager, while the needs of thousands of residents are ignored and the city is millions over budget:

Source: City of Lakewood budget

A city, where the citizens are lectured about how they should not be driving, to save the environment and stuff.  While the city has failed to champion any sort of real economic development, so that thousands of people would not have to drive out of the city for work.

A city, where the citizens are told not to drive, while the aforementioned City Manager gets paid for mileage, just to go to work.  A City Manager that lives in the city.  Gets paid to drive to work.  Do you?

Here is an exert from City Manager’s contract:

Source: Lakewood City Manager Contract

The taxpayers, it seems also get to pay for the privilege of the department heads using the medical benefits, after they leave.  Do you get a perk such as that with your employer?

The City Manager also has a retirement perk that seems more geared for a CEO than a “public servant”.

kathy-hodgson-agreement-word-2022Download

In just one year, the city spends about $100,000,000 just on staff alone.  To be fair, some of that is police, which the city’s council has been hamstringing from even enforcing the laws that exist.

Here are the compensation numbers, just for the “department heads” (as of two years ago – you may want to see the updated ones for 2024):

As you walk around the neglected parks and drive on Kipling where the road surface has been in need of repair for years and most of the lights are out on some of the sections, may be think about asking the city what has it done with the tens of millions it receives every year, before even getting to the TABOR refunds?  Perhaps start off by looking at the expenditure trends of the planning and city manager’s departments?

So when Lakewood asks for your TABOR refund (for parks and police of course), ask the city – why are millions spent on just the planning and the city manager’s offices alone and why is the city millions over budget every year?  The cuts should have happened years ago, with money saved then be used for the parks, police, economic development and road and infrastructure maintenance.  But, instead, the city is now spending thousands of dollars of your money for marketing research to see how to manipulate the residents in to allowing the city to keep millions more from the TABOR-mandated refunds.

Lakewood Supports City Planners Over Residents

Written by Lakewood News from Karen on .

The development at 777 S Yarrow St, Lakewood, Colorado, has brought residents concerns over development to the forefront. Despite having ordinances and zoning codes, residents have identified concerns with traffic impacts, wildfire and emergency response, the loss of trees and questionable park fee implementations. Residents continue to act for this cause, at SaveBelmarPark.com, and there has been rumors of possible legal action. However, if Colorado House Bill 1107 gets passed, residents will have an even more difficult time bringing legal action against the city, because they will face legal fees if they lose the case. The bill is meant to decrease suits from residents, who don’t understand that the city has done research to show that the city is right, and therefore, resident concerns are generally unfounded and possibly frivolous. The Lakewood Legislative Committee, has taken a support position on this bill, meaning they support making it harder for residents to bring legal action against the city. This position provides an insight as to why so many resident complaints, like those of hundreds of people against the S Yarrow St development, are often given lip-service or outright ignored.

The issue highlights an important dichotomy in government. Technically, in a representative democracy, the residents should be telling elected officials what they want in terms of legislation. The elected officials then vote on a policy and the city staff will implement it. But what happens when politicians use targeted words to get a policy through that means something other than what people think? What happens when words from last year can be reinterpreted to mean something different this year, so that policy can change without so much as a public discussion?

These are the questions that residents ask when looking at the rules for developing S Yarrow St. How is it possible that a little street with a small building footprint can have no negative impact to traffic if you change it to high-density residential an add an extra couple hundred cars? Aren’t there rules to maintain a neighborhood in similar fashion?

In Colorado Springs, residents have found the answer in taking legal action against the city. Springs residents’ often cite the same problems – and developers are tired of it. According to this article in The Gazette, developers cite the need for more housing while residents cite safety concerns. Reading this article, where they talk about the 7-story complexes going in that are causing traffic concerns for the residents, you may think you are reading about Lakewood.

City Has the Experts

Lakewood will often require a traffic impact study, or environmental study when necessary. This expert testimony is the basis for approving projects. As one quote from the Gazette article stated, “”When [neighborhoods] fight these projects, they are not agreeing with the experts. They are deciding for themselves that it’s not safe.”

“In recent years, numerous political theorists and philosophers have argued that experts ought to be in charge of public policy and should manipulate, or contain, the policy preferences of the ignorant masses.”  – Nicholas Tampio, aeon.co

It is rare that cities will change their mind on project approval. Residents concerned with 777 S Yarrow have been told for months that nothing substantial can be done. So legal action brought by residents will typically delay a project, but will not cause any particular change.

To limit these delays, developers and cities need a way to stop residents from pursuing legal action. One way to achieve that is through HB24-1107 which proposes that residents who legally challenge the city will have to pay legal fees if they lose.

Passing HB24-1107 is sure to discourage residents, who already have less financial and legal resources than the city or developers they are facing.

Lakewood Council Member David Rein pointed out that this legislation is very one sided because developers are still free to bring legal action with no increased risk to themselves, which will not be the case for the residents. However, with his “city hat” on, Rein supports the legislation.

Councilor Glenda Sinks said that Lakewood should support this bill because it’s a way to support staff.

No one publicly considered the increase in legal action as a cry for help from the residents, who have presumably asked for the ordinances to be enforced in the way residents commonly understood they would be (for example, open space would be park space, not including dumpster space.)

Unanimous approval from the Legislative Committee: Council Members Sinks , Cruz, Stewart, Rein, LaBure (absent)

Legislative positions are not posted anywhere or shared unless there is a “strong” position. But this signals to the residents that Lakewood considers resident appeals to be generally not worthy of support.

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