Outside money floods Lakewood’s zoning fight—but voters aren’t budging

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

I wanted to offer some interesting updates on Lakewood’s zoning fight. I would also say that if this issue is near to your heart, and you’ve not yet, you might consider subscribing to the Lakewood Informer–an outlet that’s done incredible work covering this issue.

In broad terms, as of the last update, a group of citizens pushing back on Lakewood City Council’s zoning mandates had successfully gotten enough signatures to put zoning on the ballot so residents of Lakewood could have a say on the issue.*

Interestingly, per the second link below a blog entry for the Kim Monson radio show, the measure has drawn quite a bit of monied and big-name opposition, including that from out of state!

Quoting from that link with embedded links intact:

“Action Now Initiative’s $75,000 accounts for more than a third of the pro-rezoning war chest. Other major contributors include Boulder-based Conscience Bay at $50,000, Gary Community Ventures at $25,000, and Cardel Homes at $10,000. Make Lakewood Livable [the group opposing a change to the current policy, i.e. opposing the citizen petition] also has the backing of Housing Forward Colorado, Metro West Housing Solutions, Jefferson County commissioners, U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, and former U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter.”

I debated running this post yesterday alongside the CPW Commissioner nod to a petition run by an out of state advocacy group. I say that because at heart, both topics are fundamentally linked, if not topically linked.

Both of them involve our state being used as a lab or playground for wealthy liberal groups to push their policy, even if that policy doesn’t fit with the wishes and values of those living here. They try to overwhelm the people’s desires with floods of cash; this is a dynamic that, I believe, we can trace back to The Blue Print.**

I think the outsiders see a (were involved in electing a?) group of city councilors who would play ball on the kind policy they want. The kind of policy that, per the third and fourth links below–both Lakewood Informer pieces, dovetails neatly with what state-level Democrats want.

Then along comes a pesky group of voters to wreck the plan.

In addition to being thematically related to what happened with CPW, this is just as wrong. Whatever happens in Lakewood, it ought to be up to the people stuck living with it. It ought to be up to the voters. Not Texas foundations, not Colorado foundations, not affordable/multi-unit housing developers, the people.

*The most current, widest-angle survey of it I could find is a Complete Colorado article which I link to first below. If you are unfamiliar with this issue, this is a good primer for reading this post.
**If you’ve not read the book, you should.

• Complete Colorado: Lakewood voters to have final say on high-density zoning
• Kim Monson: Houston dark money in Lakewood upzoning vote
• Lakewood Informer: Lakewood representatives using position to advance Democrat agenda
• Lakewood Informer: Inability to rebuild single-family

Related: Polis recently signed more legislation that removes local control over housing. More in the article below:

CPR: Polis signs bill allowing schools to bypass zoning rules

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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