Getting involved

I, much like you, had never made it to a neighborhood association meeting, until this summer. I’ve taken a backseat for years, watching as we restricted parking (Why? My street now sits empty all day long, where it used to be filled with people visiting local business during the work week — more on this at a later date), watching as we raised hell every time a new businesses was set to move in on Broadway, and otherwise doing everything we can to stunt growth and economic development along our beloved commercial corridor.

Deciding enough was enough, I attended my first meeting in June. It was focused around a proposal to develop the property now occupied by the Security Service Federal Credit Union at 99 S. Broadway.

I knew going into the meeting how those attending felt about the prospect of a developer putting apartments on the lot (no), but I wasn’t fully prepared for exactly how unwilling we would be to hear the proposal.

Now, to be fair, the gentlemen pitching the project completely missed in selling this as a good thing for the neighborhood (know your audience dude), but I’m not at all sure the best presentation in the world would have fared any better that night. The decision on how we, the historic Baker neighborhood, felt about this project had been shaped long before any developer had put an offer on this property.

No.

I heard a lot of things that night. And among the most baseless complaints, some very valid ones — I don’t live in direct proximity to the lot, and can appreciate the concern those neighbors that do have with a proposed re-zoned five story building being built in their backyard. I also happen to agree that much of the development going in around Denver these days leaves more than a little to be desired on the architectural and materials front. However, as our City Council member Jolon Clark pointed out at the meeting, the developer (or any developer really), has the right to develop the ugliest, three story building they want on that lot tomorrow if they so chose due to its current zoning, so maybe it was worth holding a dialog with the developer that came out that night on what concerns they could realistically address, since they were at least on the face of it willing to listen, rather than just tell them… no.