By Tracy Ross | The Colorado Sun
“I’m not young, I’m not stupid and it’s not going to happen.”
That’s what Debbie Palizzi told developer Jack Hoagland when he knocked on her door in 2022 and offered her $75,000 to run a stormwater pipeline from a subdivision he wanted to build through land her family has been farming for over 90 years.
Now that land could fall into Hoagland’s hands. He has asked an Adams County judge to decide whether Parkland Metropolitan District, of which he is president, can exercise eminent domain on Palizzi’s property to the west of the proposed Bromley Farms neighborhood.
If that happens, Palizzi said it will destroy her ability to continue farming 65 acres that sit between Sixth Avenue and Bromley Lane in Brighton. A pipeline across the property would also devalue its future development potential, she said, limiting how it can be subdivided. “And it will take away a 63-year-old’s and 65-year-old’s ability to make a living,” she added, referring to herself and her longtime partner, Jose Gutierrez.