Katie and Tony Christensen want to knock down a 1953 brick, ranch-style home they purchased in a quiet Lakewood neighborhood and build their new dream house on the exact same spot.
But since they bought their house in 2023, the Lakewood City Council passed a measure that requires those undertaking new residential construction projects to devote a portion of their properties to parkland for use by the public. That’s a problem as the couple seeks a building permit from the city to go forward with their project.
In the Christensens’ case, the city is telling them to set aside a 1,372-square-foot slice of their 1.3-acre lot on West Illiff Avenue as a public park to satisfy the new ordinance. The law ended the city’s fee-in-lieu practice, whereby a developer or homeowner could buy their way out of a land dedication.
“We’re not a developer — we’re one family trying to upgrade our house,” said Tony Christensen, 42. “When you see language like ‘Save our parks, save open space,’ it gets a lot of votes. They don’t look at the unintended consequences of it.”
The land-use ordinance that Lakewood passed on Nov. 4 never actually made it to voters. The City Council adopted the measure after it became clear that backers of a citizens’ petition to increase parkland dedications in the city — driven by a yearslong, and often emotional, battle against an apartment building proposed for the edge of Belmar Park — had gathered enough signatures to get it on a ballot.
The ramifications of Lakewood’s new law have been abrupt and widespread: The city hasn’t issued any residential building permits since Dec. 7, when the ordinance went into effect.
Dozens of projects in the city — some as simple as a conversion of a single-family home, up to a collection of duplexes — have essentially been stopped in their tracks.
One of the 102 stalled projects calls for 14 townhomes to be built on a 1-acre lot on West Colfax Avenue. The city now requires a fifth of the property be set aside as parkland.
“Site requires redesign, and developer must place parkland dedication in an easement,” a city memo notes dispassionately.
“It makes all these properties undevelopable”
City leaders have gotten an earful from residents about the new measure.
At a workshop earlier this month, Lakewood Mayor Wendi Strom told her colleagues on the council that the increased parkland set-aside requirement had made many residential projects in the city of 156,000, even the small ones, “untenable.”
At a council meeting Monday night, public comment and in-depth discussion among the members about how to adjust the new law went on for nearly five hours.
“At present, from single-family homes to townhomes to larger developments, that actually includes 102 projects that are in a holding pattern based on this particular ordinance,” Strom said Monday.
One of the big changes talked about during the meeting was restoring the fee-in-lieu option, with the money collected from those fees to be spent on establishing neighborhood and community parks within the city. A final decision on how Lakewood will amend its land-use rules is expected at the council’s Feb. 24 meeting.
Nate Wightman, a Lakewood resident for more than a quarter-century, said everyone loves parks and open space. But green space can’t be forced on the community at the expense of badly needed housing, he said — especially affordable housing.
Wightman, 58, recently launched a Change.org petition to push for the repeal of Lakewood’s ordinance. He claims it “creates a major barrier to development of desperately needed attainable housing for low to moderate income households and senior citizens.”
“It makes all these properties undevelopable,” he told The Denver Post. “We need housing and lots of it. To say density and a walkable community near a park is bad — I disagree.”
Krista Macco is in the midst of trying to get approval from Lakewood to build a 26-unit affordable apartment complex called Benton Transit Flats near West Colfax Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. She told the council Monday that as soon as the new ordinance took effect, requiring dedication of land for park use at the site, “everything screeched to a halt.”
“The investor didn’t feel comfortable moving forward with us, and it made this project, and any project on our lot, infeasible,” she said. “Without development, the project dies.”
During the earlier Feb. 3 council workshop, Councilman Roger Low said the new ordinance was “shot through with legal issues.” In December, the city was sued by Kairoi Properties LLC, the developer behind the 411-unit Belmar Park project that was the target of the ordinance.
The company claimed Lakewood changed its rules midstream for residential projects by eliminating the fee-in-lieu option and nearly doubling its green space dedication. The sudden change in rules, Kairoi has contended, threatens to tank its project.
Last month, a Jefferson County district judge imposed a preliminary injunction on Lakewood, forbidding the city from enforcing the land dedication restrictions on Kairoi’s project at 777 S. Yarrow St. until a trial could be held.
Trying to “honor and listen” to petitioners
Despite the legal hazards, Low told his colleagues at the workshop that they must tread carefully in making changes to the city’s measure.
“There is a need to honor and listen to the over 6,000 Lakewood residents who did sign the (land-use) petition,” he said.
Lakewood resident Cathy Kentner helped lead the signature-gathering effort as a member of the advocacy group Save Open Space Lakewood. The city, she said, is “disseminating purposeful and gross misinterpretations of the new parkland dedication ordinance.”
“City officials have made the decision to require land dedication for the replacement of a single family home while blaming it on the recently passed Save Open Space Green initiative,” she wrote in an email to The Post. “And, what is even more ridiculous, they have told a landowner they must create an easement, a part of their yard, that would be open to the general public. This is clearly not what the new ordinance states.”
In the meantime, the Christensens are paying rent on a house where they live along with a mortgage on the house on West Illiff. Katie Christensen, 41, said she couldn’t imagine having to monitor her two young boys as anyone who wanted to step on their property — on the city-required park space — could choose to do so.
“We let them roam,” said Christensen, a lawyer. “I would not feel safe in my own neighborhood for them to have autonomy, which as young boys they need.”
She pointed to a ditch that runs through the lot. It’s the only reasonable place the couple say they could dedicate the required parkland to the city. She is worried they would be liable for anyone who injures themselves — or worse — on their land.
“Are we liable if someone drowns?” she asked. “We’re cautiously optimistic this will get resolved — but at what expense and on what timeline?”
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