Resident reaction to city undermining parkland petition
Lakewood Cries Foul Over New Ordinance While Ignoring Own Laws for Years
By Regina Hopkins
At the Lakewood City Council meeting on Monday, November 4, 2024, council members spent three hours deliberating a new ordinance, O-2024-28, and whether to approve it or send it to a special election, which was expected to cost Lakewood between $175,000 and $350,000. Despite expectations that the council would send it to an election, in an unexpected turn of events, the Council enacted the ordinance itself, arguing that doing so would save taxpayer money and expedite an inevitable legal battle related to the Colorado Legislature’s recently enacted HB 24-1313.
While Lakewood cries foul over the supposed legality of the newly passed ordinance, its longstanding failure to enforce Lakewood’s own ordinances reveals the hypocrisy of the City’s stance. Ordinance O-2024-28, introduced by the grassroots group “Save Open Space Lakewood,” was sparked by the plan to build a massive zero-lot-line luxury apartment complex next to Belmar Park, the city’s crown jewel. This development became the final straw, igniting widespread outrage and drawing attention to the even larger issue of ignoring open space requirements throughout Lakewood and unchecked overdevelopment.
A Different Perspective
By Lenore Herskovitz
On November 4 the Lakewood City Council reluctantly voted to pass the Citizens Initiated Ordinance pertaining to park and open space dedication rather than send it to a special election. How and why did we arrive at this point?
Citizen activism has existed almost since Lakewood’s inception in 1969. “The True Story of How Belmar Park Came into Existence” by Stuart MacPhail tells how Lakewood citizens were able to override the wishes of most of the early Lakewood elected leaders and administrative staff regarding the establishment of Belmar Park. A multi-year conflict culminated in a citizen initiated public vote where they were victorious by a 2 to 1 margin.
In 2003, the mid-Lakewood residents banded together to prevent university incursion into their neighborhood. Through their perserverance they were able to get City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting university uses in low density residential zoning. That ordinance was challenged in a lawsuit filed by Colorado Christian University in 2021. Prior to that filing, our own City Attorney told the public that the ordinance was discriminatory and unconstitutional and would not be upheld by the Courts. Yet when forced to defend our law, the City won in both the District and Appellate Courts.
Lakewood Council green-lights citizens’ petition with its disingenuous vote
From Save Open Space – Lakewood
At a 9/4 meeting, Lakewood City Council spoke with its usual forked tongue, voting for a citizen led green initiative to expedite delegitimizing it
Monday, November 11, 2024—-At the November 4 Lakewood City Council meeting, residents witnessed the culmination of more than a year’s intensive effort by hundreds of volunteers to hold their city accountable to its progressive environmental ordinances.
The only item in the hearing was a petition, created by Save Open Space – Lakewood (SOS – L) and signed by more than 6000 voters, which, if approved, would eliminate the option given developers to pay a fee to the city and instead require them to provide the full, current standard of 10.5 acres of parkland for every 1,000 occupants.
For over ten years, the predominantly pro-development Lakewood City Council has allowed all developers to pay the city a fee in lieu of donating land for parks and open spaces. This has led to monstrous, soul-less apartment buildings with no green space that remind observers of Russia, not Lakewood.
