For the second time in a year, City Council will decide whether to rezone the 155-acre former Park Hill Golf Course site in Northeast Park Hill. This time the rezoning will make way for the return of golf -- the thing many people Denverite spoke with said they didn't want on the land. Yet that's what the majority of voters effectively chose when they voted to keep a conservation easement that mandates the land be used as a golf course.
A rezoning is scheduled to be considered in the Land Use and Transportation Committee on May 9, and the full City Council will hear public comment on June 20.
This is just months after a majority of Council members voted to rezone the land to make way for four-to-12-story residential buildings, 11 acres of affordable housing from Brothers Redevelopment and Habitat for Humanity, retail, space for a grocery store and Denver's fourth-largest park along Colorado Boulevard near the 40th and Colorado A-Line stop -- none of which is happening now.
For the past couple years, Community Planning and Development was busy in community meetings, working with the City Attorney's office, and planning what Mayor Michael Hancock's administration hoped would be a vibrant future for the site.
One problem: A city-owned conservation easement passed in Mayor Wellington Webb's administration in the late '90s mandated the land be used as an 18-hole, fee-based golf course and other recreational purposes, as long as they didn't interfere with golf.
Hancock's administration planned to lift the conservation easement to allow Westside to develop.
And all was going according to plan, until opponents of the development raised concerns that Hancock was working in the interest of developers rather than the public.
Save Open Space Denver -- a group including Webb opposing development on the land -- put forth a ballot measure in 2021 asking voters whether they wanted to decide the fate of city-owned conservation easements. Voters said they did.
Then, in the April election, City Council asked the public to lift the conservation easement and make way for development. A coalition including the Denver Republican Party and the Democratic Socialists of America urged voters to oppose Westside's project and preserve the easement.
Voters overwhelming said no to the development and yes to keeping the easement that mandates a regulation-size golf course.
In part, voters were responding to what Save Open Space Denver and other advocates saw as bad-faith actions from the developer and the city.
Community Planning and Development had axed SOS Denver from a steering committee about the future of the site. The group sued the city and City Council to try to stop the development -- twice. One case was thrown out. The other is still in the courts.
Neighbors organized a protest petition to stop the rezoning that the city threw out, without allowing for an appeal or even answering how that would happen -- all ahead of major City Council votes on the issue.
The city didn't assess the value of the land or the conservation easement itself, raising concerns about whether the deal was a good one.
The Denver Post editorial board asked whether Hancock was giving away a publicly owned conservation easement that the city had paid $2 million for and which had surely grown by tens of millions in value: Shouldn't that be accounted for in any deal, and wasn't City Council allowing that to happen without doing due diligence or basic financial review? The Post's editorial board estimated the conservation easement's value was roughly $184 million.
Multiple opponents of the development, who said the easement was closer to $60 million in value, said the Post's estimate was $120 million too high. Still, who could say without an assessment and why wouldn't the city do that?
Now, Westside is doing what it said it would all along if voters turned down its proposal: fencing off the land to the general public and turning the site back into a private golf course.
"Westside Investment Partners will rezone the property per the legally binding agreements that require this land to be a privately owned golf course," said Westside Principal Kenneth Ho in a statement. "We will honor our commitment to the easement, just as we would have honored our commitments to provide affordable housing, public park space, and equitable development had the initiative passed."
Denver has a big election coming and will choose its next mayor in June. And activists are already making demands of both candidates.
For example, SOS Denver wants the next mayor to unwind some of the more permanent work City Council completed. Months ago Council also voted to pass a small area plan that spells out the city's long-term vision for the land and which will carry on whether the rezoning occurs. That plan is all about development.
SOS Denver wants the mayor -- Hancock or whoever is elected -- to repeal the small area plan and hopes that if the site is not reopened as a golf course, that Westside sells it to the city, which will in turn build a park there.
Both Denver mayoral candidates Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough have said they would attempt to broker a deal for a park. SOS Denver has not endorsed either candidate and expresses enthusiasm for both of their takes on the issue, though Webb backed Brough, citing her dialogue with SOS advocates.
"If Westside Investment Partners chooses not to re-open golf operations," SOS writes, the group hopes "city leaders will facilitate the City's purchase of the property for a designated city park at its fair market value (as encumbered by the easement) by using funds from the Referred Measure 2A 0.25% sales tax revenues."
That would require Westside to play ball. Neither candidate would commit to using eminent domain to take the land if Westside refuses to sell.
And golf, which is the stated purpose of the conservation easement, is what Westside has promised and the document protects.
So when's tee time?
Westside does not have a date for reopening the course.
