Monday (11/4) Lakewood City Council will be required to approve SOS - Lakewood’s Green Initiative or send it to the voters
The initiative requires that new developments provide green space instead of choosing the option to pay the city
Friday, November 1—After a year of dogged advocacy to preserve Belmar Park for humans and wildlife, hundreds of Lakewood residents can now feel confident that they have done far more than protect one magical park from a monstrous city approved development.
Out of their activism, they formed Save Open Space - Lakewood (SOS - Lakewood) and created the Lakewood Green Initiative which would no longer allow developers the option of paying the city instead of creating parkland. Instead, developers working any where in Lakewood would have to adhere to a formula for creating green space based on the amount of acreage purchased and dimensions of their building.
Dedicated volunteers collected over 6,000 valid signatures in order to move the Lakewood Green Initiative forward. If passed, it will force Lakewood staff and city council to venture into a new world of transparency, accountability and environmental stewardship when approving developments.
On Monday, November 4, the Lakewood City Council will vote on the initiative that is scheduled early in the agenda.
When. Monday, November 4
Time: 7 p.m.
Where: Lakewood City Council Chambers, 480 S Allison Parkway
Those familiar with the council’s year-long attempts to thwart citizen opposition to Belmar Park’s monolith luxury apartment building won’t be surprised that the city moved the date of the initiative hearing from November 18 to November 4. Addressing the initiative the night before the election will limit publicity. The development friendly council is expected to vote against the initiative.
Belmar Park advocates will also note that Lakewood may have fast-tracked the signature counting process to time the potential special election for the initiative to occur between December 10 and January 14, when people are extremely busy with the holidays.
During the last year, Lakewood residents learned of the duplicity of their city officials who for two years had secretly been ushering through approval of the planned behemoth luxury apartment at 777 S. Yarrow Street to share the eastern boundary of 132-acre Belmar Park. The Russian style building is designed as five stories of 80 or more units per floor with 412 total units and a footprint more than the size two football fields.
Employing the Lakewood Green Initiative formula, Kairoi Residential, the developer, would have to redesign the project to allow for significant park and open space.
“When elected officials fail to respond to the public's wishes, the people have no other avenue than their right to direct democracy and the ballot box,” said Cathy Kentner. “We are on our way to making a difference in creating a greener, cleaner, and environmentally friendly Lakewood.”
Kentner, a Jefferson County public school teacher and longtime Lakewood activist, conceived SOS - Lakewood and co-created the grass-roots Lakewood Green Initiative, a petition that has been embraced by many thousands of Lakewood residents seeking change to the status quo of rubber stamping development projects without consideration for the future impacts to residents and our natural environment.
Although residents have long felt powerless as Lakewood approved large apartment buildings in residential neighborhoods and at the perimeter of parks, the Kairoi monolith at Belmar Park inspired multiple groups to work to either limit the size of the building or eliminate it entirely.
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