The Colorado Court of Appeals issued a ruling on November 25 that avoids deciding the substance of homeowners’ 2014 lawsuit challenging part of the rezoning of the Buckley Annex parcel on the old Lowry Air Force Base in east Denver.
t’s that time of year once again when all registered neighborhood organizations (RNOs) must renew their registration with the city! Renewal can be done online from now until Monday, February 1, 2016. Visit www.DenverGov.org/RNO or follow the link below and click “Renew Now” on the right side of the page.
Neighborhood Groups Begin To Flex Their Muscles
by Charles Bonniwell
As the Denver City Council is increasingly looked at by some as a tainted and dishonest political entity that ignores the concerns and wishes of residents in favor of powerful real estate developers, many people in Denver have increasingly turned to neighborhood associations and Denver’s Inter-Neighborhood Cooperative (INC) to represent
their interests.
November 2015 has been a landmark month for my own Overland Park Neighborhood Association. Rotating teams of neighbors led by our Directing artist, Michele Brown and our RNO President and team co-ordinator, Mara Owen worked long hours to complete phase one of the Evans Bridge Beautification project, EBB.
Inter-neighborhood 2016 Awards dinner will be January 28 at the Police Protective Association Event Center 2105 Decatur St. Each year, INC hosts a Neighborhood Awards Dinner and Silent Auction. The dinner is held to honor and celebrate individuals and organizations who have worked to better Denver’s community. Please see the list below and nominate your candidates for these awards now.
VIDEO: This hearing before the Colorado Court of Appeals, is critically important to Denver’s neighborhoods. The City of Denver maintains that only residents within 200 feet of property have the right to challenge a rezoning decision in court. The intent of this appeal of a District Court decision on this matter is what is being argued here by Attorney Greg Kerwin. However, note also that the City Attorney, Ms. Avila, also argues that no “quasi-judicial” decision of the Denver Planning Board can be appealed in court even if members of the Planning Board act arbitrarily or have clear conflicts of interest.
About 90 mature evergreen trees — some up to 100 years old — have died in a patch of mountain forest in the middle of Washington Park, and neighbors are blaming the recycled irrigation water.
The park has been irrigated with recycled water — storm and wastewater cleaned up not quite to drinking standards but OK for lawns and other landscaping — since 2004. But in the last three years the canopy shading what is known as Evergreen Hill has begun to disappear.
Last month alone, 21 dying conifers — mostly blue spruce and Douglas firs — were removed from the hill along Virginia Avenue near Lafayette Street at the north end of the park.