RTD’s land grab jabbed
By PETER MARCUS - January 22, 2008
Denver Daily News
Even in the face of losing property to the Regional Transportation District, property owners along the future FasTracks west corridor said yesterday they are not opposed to eminent domain. They would just like to see RTD use the property it takes for actual transportation needs, not for private development.
Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, agrees. He plans on introducing legislation that would prevent RTD from using eminent domain if the district cannot prove that the land would be used to further its mission of providing transit options. Colorado law already requires a government agency that takes property through eminent domain to demonstrate public use of the property. White’s legislation would take that a step further by preventing RTD from then contracting out the land to a private developer for commercial, retail or other private development.
“Why should we be extending eminent domain beyond RTD’s needs of providing its mission of transporting people?” said White following a press conference with co-sponsors Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, and Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton. White was flanked by about 16 landowners who have received letters from RTD explaining that their property will be acquired by the district to develop the light rail’s west corridor. The district is expected to make as many as 130 acquisitions in total.
More than just parking
Lakewood couple Galen Lee Foster and Kim A. Snyder received a letter from RTD informing the couple of its intent to acquire their home and auto glass treatment business at 14th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. The husband-and-wife team are concerned that RTD is discussing the possibility of turning the property into a 12-story parking garage, retail and office building by using private developers.
Foster and Snyder believe that since it was their land in the first place, and because RTD has discussed also developing retail and office space there, it should be their option to stay at the property and use a private developer of their own to develop it for both public and private use.
“Bob Murphy, the new Lakewood mayor, said last week three different times that our corner is going to be the crown jewel of Lakewood,” said Foster. “You don’t steal the crown jewels from the king or queen.”
“I’m willing to die for my land, are you?” added Foster. “Once you’ve taken away all of our rights, the American Dream, what the hell else is there?”
RTD says it uses all of the land it acquires for transit use. Spokesman Scott Reed explained that because RTD would be building on top of the space it needs for transit use and not acquiring additional property — as is the case for Foster’s and Snyder’s property — it is OK for the district to hire a private developer to potentially build retail and office space.
“If there’s an opportunity for a private developer to build something on top of that transit improvement, that is something we would look at allowing because, again, we’re not acquiring additional property to potentially make that happen,” said Reed.
“If a private developer is interested in building something on top of that structure, that is something that could potentially reduce the cost to taxpayers because a private developer could help pay for the parking structure,” added Reed.
Money grab?
Steve Fesch, who received a letter from RTD informing him of its intent to acquire his property at Howard Place and Decatur Street near Invesco Field at Mile High, said he is concerned about taxpayers, but added that he shouldn’t be removed from the development process simply because the transit district needs money.
“If they weren’t $2 billion in debt, I don’t think they’d be reaching so far,” said Fesch, referring to the FasTracks estimated $1.5 billion debt because of rising construction costs and inflation. “They say the cost of materials has gone up, but that’s not what the voters approved. We approved FasTracks at a budget — that budget is blown.”
Fesch uses the space near Invesco to house his old New Jersey transit bus converted into Orange Force One — Bronco Nation’s greatest tailgating hub. But Fesch is not concerned with the fact that he’s losing a garage for his recreational vehicle because of eminent domain. It’s that RTD could use the property for commercial development that gets to Fesch, who once dreamed of opening a Broncos bar and restaurant there.
“We’re not trying to stop RTD or FasTracks. Our concern is them taking people’s land and doing commercial and retail development, which they readily admitted to doing,” he said. “I think most Americans can agree that we, the landowners, should do the developing if we so choose. Why even get a third party involved?”
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Whenever something is deemed “the crown jewel” you know you’re in trouble. It means that’s where the target has been painted to make the example. Nobody uses that term unless they’ve been indoctrinated into the belief that government planning can always do a better job (by committee, no less) at bringing in business than can business folks themselves. What do we get? No sense of how much it’s going to cost, even after we voted for a specific amount. Why? Because there was no real plan then, and there’s no real plan now. We were dumb to vote for it.
These kinds of projects yank land values up so high that other businesses leave. Having the owners develop the land themselves would work a whole lot better than this huge “planned” project.
All over the country you can see them failing, once the first businesses in give up, nobody new comes in - it’s too expensive. These multi-use dream homes are the white elephants of our future. Only the developers who get the money (that we pay back bonds for years to get) up front, win in this kind of plan. Once it goes up, they’ve ot their money and they’re gone. We get the bills and the empty eyesore buildings near public transit for which we pay more than they ever told us we would. Such a deal.
Thanks for the post Eva.
For the record there is much more in my building. There is a manufacturing company that in total employs dozens of people and they distribute their product all over the world.
I’m going to ask Peter to get make the correction for the record.
My investment is at stake, my dreams for the corner are at stake, and business that adds a lot of $$ to the Denver tax base is being driven out at the same time.
Steve