Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Preserve Denver’s open space — what’s left of it

A conservation easement butts heads 
with development. Green space or housing? Both are needed, but green space is rarer.

If you live in Denver, among the many issues appearing on your ballot this November are two seemingly similar yet competing questions, 301 and 302. Both are about the conservation easement on Park Hill Golf Course — the only conservation easement of its kind in Denver.

There are a huge number of issues involved: urban development, green space, affordable housing, taxpayer rights, public versus private land, overdevelopment, market value, transparency — and we’re probably missing a few. While the debate here is not quite as binary as concrete versus green, as the 301 side presents, it does come down to open space versus development.

Some background: In 1997, the city under then Mayor Wellington Webb, this city’s last mayor to truly care about open space and boast about Denver’s parks, paid then owners Clayton Trust $2 million for an easement on the land, which specified it must continue to be used as an 18-hole golf course. In 2018, the golf course ceased operation and in 2019 the land was purchased by Westside Investment partners for $24 million, the easement still in place.

Westside hoped — and continues to hope — that the city council would lift the easement, allowing for mixed-use development on the property. That’s one side of the coin — 302. The other side is preserving the land as open space — 301.

The Intermountain Jewish News spoke with representatives of each ballot issue, and both sides have compelling arguments.

The Denver metro area has seen explosive growth over the past 10-15 years. In a city that once boasted a park every mile, green space has shrunk. High-rises — predominantly luxury ones — have shot up and housing prices have increased by double-digit percentages. We are simultaneously experiencing a housing and environmental crisis, and thus far the city has not presented strong solutions to either.

Westside argues that their proposed development helps ameliorate both. They have committed to maintaining 60 acres of open space and say that affordable housing options will be embedded into legal contracts, protecting those buyers and renters in particular, from market forces.

More than that, Westside argues that their project represents the neighborhood and would benefit the neighborhood. Kenneth Ho, Westside’s lead on the Park Hill Golf Course project, makes a good point when he asks why residents of Bear Valley should have a say on what goes on in North and Northeast Park Hill. Other developments — Lowry, Stapleton, Boulevard One, etc. — took place without a citywide vote, which is what 301 is demanding. Ho argues that the terms of an easement are for the signees — in this case Westside and City Council — to negotiate, not the entire city’s residents.

But when residents see their city transforming, piece by piece, from green spaces to building sites, is it a surprise that residents would seize on this opportunity to have a voice? Indeed a Southwest Denver resident is impacted by Park Hill Golf Course; according to the EPA, lack of green space contributes to hotter daily temperatures. Removing a green lung is deleterious to the city as a whole.

This is also a Denver-wide issue as the $2 million paid by the city in 1998 to protect the land came from Denver taxpayers, not only adjacent neighborhoods, as Tony Pigford, activist with 301, points out.

Ho sees Westside’s development as adding much-need housing as well as jobs and commerce to an area that has long been deprived. When asked why Denver voters should trust Westside, when development’s track record in this city isn’t one of creating affordable housing, Ho reiterates that this project’s covenants will delineate affordability percentages and will contain accountability measures. Community Benefits Agreements will be in place and indeed Westside has amassed backing from local residents, including the Holleran Group, an influential group of local African American business leaders.

But it is more complicated than that.

Most public surveys and studies have shown that a majority of Park Hill residents want the easement in place. The 60 acres Westside is promising is not contiguous and includes things like front lawns and drainages. African Americans, like other groups in the area, are split on the matter. While the Holleran Group backs Westside, former Mayor Webb and former State Rep. Penfield Tate back 301, the measure which would have any lifting of an easement go to Denver voters.

Ho convincingly argues that developing PHGC makes sense as it is well situated for public transport, with nearby light rail stations, but there are already several developments planned for that area — specifically around 40th Avenue and Colorado. Those developments will need open space, bolstering the argument for keeping the easement on PHGC. Maintaining green space will provide a much-needed oasis amid a growing urban heat island.

A sticking point in support for 301 is the language of the easement that requires the land be used primarily as an 18-hole golf course, a use that is not only environmentally unfriendly but also does not benefit a majority of area or city residents. Supporters of 301 recognize this. Activist Pigford has visions of transforming PHGC into a recreational area with sports fields, urban gardening and an amphitheater. Supporters of 301, including Tate and Webb, have asked a judge to change the terms of the easement, allowing its outdoor uses to be defined more broadly, separate from the golf course any outdoor uses are currently tied to.

Both sides agree that the conservation easement makes this case unusual. From the 301 side, it is a unique opportunity for city residents to have a say over development. From the 302 side, the size of the land provides the opportunity to manifest a new community.

Denver is a rapidly growing city that is thriving economically. There is a serious housing crisis. There are enough buyers who can afford market-rate housing, but for most working and middle class Denverites, home ownership has become a pipe dream. Westside’s development would add more housing stock to Denver, some of it affordable. But looking around Denver it is extremely difficult to argue that development has strengthened local communities. In most cases, gentrification has led to displacement.

There is also the fairness factor. Westside acquired PHGC for under market value, presumably because of the not insubstantial risk of buying property with such a strict easement on it. If the City Council is willing to lift the easement, perhaps other buyers would have been interested, buyers that would have solely built affordable housing, or redeveloped the land for outdoor use, or used it for educational purposes. Documents obtained by Tate and others show that the city has a development plan for the 155 acres, giving fuel to the argument that the City of Denver does not intend to keep this land as green space — an argument in favor of 301.

Ultimately, it is the potential for retaining green space that garners our support for 301, even if we do not support maintaining it as a golf course.

The backers of 302 make strong arguments for how their project would enhance Northeast Denver and, if it comes to fruition, we hope it will and we will be the first to raise our hands and acknowledge it. But the glut of new, unaffordable housing that in recent years has dominated Denver, makes us skeptical. The city needs more green space, not less. With the development already underway in North Denver, around the light rail, we prefer to preserve the green space we have now. A conservation easement can always be lifted, but it will never again be put in place.

Denver, like most other cities in America today, has made a virtual mantra out of development. Its tie-in to revenue is impossible to deny and, admittedly, revenue is vital to a city’s long-term health and viability.

But there is also the issue of quality of life, which is no less important. High-density housing — particularly the costly “vertical” sort of development that dominates Denver today — no doubt enhances the city’s revenue base, but what impact does it have on the city’s livability? When people of middle- or lower-income status cannot afford to purchase such housing, when those who can afford to do so cannot find a place to park their cars, when traffic congestion grows to intolerable levels — all of which are already taking place in Denver — quality of life inevitably declines.

A reasonable balance must be reached in the ongoing debate between development and quality of life. It’s time that Denver’s political leadership — and its citizenry — find that happy medium.

Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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