The Zoning and Planning Committee of Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation met on August 26, 2017 and briefly discussed the proposed “framework agreement” that will govern the National Western Center for the next 50 years and which is expected to be filed with City Council on September 7, 2017. Please note that we had no access to the document to review, because the very lengthy agreement has not been made available to the public and was negotiated and written behind closed doors.
Public Forum – Elements of Lawsuits Pertaining to Platte to Park Hill Storm Water Diversion & the I-70 Expansion
DENVER – Denver’s Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation is sponsoring an open forum about the elements of lawsuits pertaining to Platte to Park Hill storm water diversion (“The Ditch”) and the I-70 expansion and re-route project. At present, there are four lawsuits pending from various civic organizations. This educational forum will focus on the heart of these lawsuits.
Date/time: Saturday September 9 8:30AM-11:30AM.
Location: Manual High School, 1700 E 28th Ave.
Denver City Council is set to vote on contracts related to a controversial drainage project at the golf course. The work involves a stormwater drainage project and course redesign.
The proposed contracts are on the agenda for Monday, August 14, after the vote was delayed by a week. Councilman Rafael Espinoza requested the delay and sent a letter to Mayor Michael Hancock Friday morning asking him to deny the contracts.
In addition to the video interview by Channel 9, this article also contains a ethics complaint against CW Stacie Gilmore and videos of the LUDI committee and the discussion for a postponement of the contracts surrounding the Park demolition.
Currently, the land is restricted by city zoning to use as a golf course or open space, Brantley said. That means that any private developer would have to go through a fairly complex and risky process to get anything else done.
The city, meanwhile, already has a legal relationship with Clayton because of the way the Clayton Trust is structured. The city originally acted as the trustee for the assets left behind when George Clayton died in 1899. The golf course previously was agricultural and dairy land, and the government later managed it as a city golf course starting in 1932.
The governance structure for a Denver P3 office hasn’t been determined. In fact, whether the office will in fact be created hasn’t been determined. Right now, city officials are $475,000 deep into a contract with Arup Advisory Inc. to develop the program, and they’ve asked City Council to approve an additional $480,000 in consulting work (for a total of $955,000) to get the program up and running by year’s end. The actual creation and staffing of the office would be part of the 2018 budget process.
But City Council members — even those that like the idea of the office — are concerned about the process that Arup has suggested for future deals. Instead of City Council getting an up or down vote on the final contract, as is the case now, council would approve a “parameters ordinance” or “framework ordinance” that lays out what they’d like to see in the deal. The city’s P3 office would then go out looking for a partner willing to work with the city under those conditions. As long as the final contract complied with the framework ordinance, it could be approved administratively.
INC PARC discussed the forthcoming major music festival proposed for Overland Golf Course. It is strongly supported by the Mayor and his appointees. INC’s delegates opposition to Admission-based Events on public park land resolution was adopted January 2011 and a reminder of that was emailed again March 24, 2017 to Mayor Hancock, City Council, DPR’s Happy Haynes and Director of Office of Special Events. It was brought up at the PRAB meeting by Executive Director Happy Haynes that she had never heard that INC objects to using public park land for admission based events. There was a short discussion wondering if DPR believes that a DPR public golf course is not considered “park land?”