November Letters To The Editor
The City Is Blowing It
What are the options for the Park Hill Golf Course at this point? As a Park Hill resident who also lived here as a child and young adult, I think city leaders are blowing a fantastic opportunity to improve and maintain this site as a park. Can that still be considered? As we along with much of the world swelter in record heat, the importance of trees, open space, and parkland to urban community health is vital. Affordable housing is also a huge need in Denver; the project envisioned by Westside Development for PHGC would be a drop in the bucket of this need, while forever foreclosing the entire site remaining a park.
It’s not clear why the city didn’t purchase this site from the previous owner, but is this an option now? Clearly Westside didn’t purchase it to keep it as open space, in spite of the conservation easement – paid for with our tax dollars – that’s in effect for this land. They and city planners have steamrolled a planning process promoting Westside’s development vision, which will require the conservation easement to be revoked in order to build. Public input into this plan has been carefully staged; public meetings I attended were a frustrating farce.
Neighbors have drafted a comprehensive park proposal, as reported by this newspaper. What’s needed for city leaders to give this serious consideration? Denver residents have made their preferences clear: a 2019 Greater Park Hill Community-commissioned survey found a large majority of the neighborhood — 77 percent — prefers the property “remain entirely some kind of green space/park or golf course.” And last year’s citywide election results on proposals 301 and 302 show a very strong preference for what Denverites want to see happen at this site: preserving it as open space! What can be done at this point to honor the wishes of the majority of Denver residents regarding the future of the Park Hill Golf Course?
Mary Ellen Garrett, Park Hill
Incredibly Shrinking ‘Park’
The much-hyped “over 100 acres of park and open space” is complete bull coming from the city and their “client,” Westside, which hopes to develop the Park Hill Golf Course land.
The actual usable, designated park space is at most 55 acres. The zoning application revealed that first, Westside is only requesting park zoning on the eastern half of the property (80 acres, including the unusable 25-acre flood control detention pond).
So the contiguous public park space is just 55 acres. Their application goes on to say they’ll come up with another 20 acres on their private property that won’t be maintained by Parks and Rec. So basically, the grass along the sidewalks and around the apartment buildings along Colorado Blvd, or the median where they will pave the 38th Avenue “Main Street” will count as park space in their eyes.
The claim of over 100 acres is a pure snake oil sales pitch from Westside and their sales and marketing associates at the city’s Community Planning and Development. Over-promise and under-deliver!
Nevertheless, on Oct. 19 in a meeting that went past 10:30 p.m., the Planning Board accepted CPD’s assertion that it is a 100 acre park (detention pond and all) and voted to recommend to City Council approval of the plan and zoning changes.
Harry Doby, Northeast Park Hill
What Does The Mayor Get?
I appreciate Gary Martyn’s opinion piece “One Big Giveaway” in your September issue and agree with everything he wrote. However, he seems to put the blame on the developer instead of with Mayor Hancock’s administration and the City Council. Why are those parties so eager to see the Park Hill Golf Course land developed despite the clear will of the majority of Denver voters? What are they gaining from the deal?
Florine Nath, Park Hill
resident since 1980
Rethinking Retirement
Most people think of college as a place to go at the beginning of your career. The University of Colorado Denver is reimagining higher education as a place for people at the end of their primary working years. A new CU Denver program called Change Makers, launching in January, will bring experienced professionals who are approaching or already in retirement back to college for a semester to explore possibilities, retool, and renew their purpose. CU Denver designed Change Makers based on the success of similar programs in other states that bring older adults back to campus to help them move to a new phase where “work” may have an entirely different set of motivations and goals.
Change Makers is currently accepting applications for its inaugural cohort, which will begin in January and run through April. The cost for the four-month program is $3,200, and is a hybrid in-person/online format that includes weekly sessions with guided discussions, seminars with practitioners, options to audit CU Denver classes, and an optional applied internship in a nonprofit or social enterprise. More information is at ucdenver.edu/change-makers.
Anne Button, Program Director,
Highlands
We love your letters, and give preference to those that address an issue that has been covered in the newspaper, or a topic that is Park Hill or Denver-specific. Send letters to editor@greaterparkhill.org, and include your full name, and the neighborhood in which you live. Deadlines are the 15th of each month, for the following month’s issue.