Communities need room to breath
Over the last 20-years in Denver, thousands of working-class families have been priced out, having their older neighborhoods gentrified and scraped to make way for high-end housing for those looking for a hip urban lifestyle. Forced into older inner-ring suburbs where they have been able to find small affordable-homes to raise families, they are again being displaced — this time to make way for suburban high-density apartments and “urbanist” subdivisions.
In Westminster (no. 20 nationwide for suburban apartments built) developers are rushing to the trough to grab every open lot to slap up stack-and-pack McVillages.
With Metro Tax Districts to pay themselves back for infrastructure, it’s a goldmine for the developers and disastrous to the communities who have made this their home.
Communities are being left with insufficient infrastructure to support these builds and seeing open areas bulldozed and paved over for the developers’ and bankers’ bottom lines
An obscene example is the Uplands proposal for the Westminster Castle Farm — a plan to build 2,350 apartments, tract homes, and unneeded commercial space. A proposed loss of a great open area with majestic views to be replaced with concrete and a 65-foot-high wall of apartments on Federal Blvd. This is not about meeting housing needs nor being sustainable but bolstering investment portfolios. We need healthy inclusive communities with room to breathe.
The existing communities should be listened to by the city and not treated as an annoyance in the way of a developer’s plan.
Karen Ray,
Westminster