From a science perspective, protecting Belmar Park is largely about protecting biodiversity.
According to the United Nations, biodiversity is our strongest natural defense against climate change.
Because as we lose or degrade habitats such as Belmar Park, biodiversity declines including eventually losing entire species that become extinct.
It is critically important to protect habitats because the web of life depends on habitats to support biodiversity.
That is why the US Fish and Wildlife Service now “embraces Strategic Habitat Conservation (SHC), which focuses less on recovering individual species, and more on recovering habitats essential to a broad range of species.”
Without biodiversity, our well-being including even economic well-being falls apart.
Over half of global economic activity (sometimes called GDP) depends on nature.
If we prioritize building expensive housing over protecting habitats and biodiversity, what will you tell the kids when they grow up and there is not enough food to bring home? Or not enough water? Or not enough medication? We depend on the web of life for all of that.
There is one small HOA across the street with only 45 townhomes. However, our change.org petition has over 7,000 signatures from metro area citizens and beyond.
So NO, this is not a NIMBY-based opposition. Far from it.
You decide.
Kairoi held a secret meeting with unannounced time or place and not open to the public. They allowed just three representatives from just one HOA to attend.
The Letter:
In a letter dated October 18, 2023, Kairoi Residential stated their intention to have “a discussion about this project with the “Lakewood community” because they “want to be a good neighbor”.
They even exclaimed: “We should have worked to have a community discussion.”
Kairoi further stated: “We have contacted City staff to schedule these discussions and to reach out to concerned residents about participating.”
However, Lakewood later announced: “The discussion for the proposed development at 777 S. Yarrow St. will encourage dialogue between Kairoi and the immediate neighbors” with no mention of the Lakewood community or reaching out or concerned residents.
So they had a secret meeting with three immediate neighbors! THAT was their ‘discussion’ with the ‘Lakewood community’.
The traffic study only includes traffic attributed to one of the two adjacent locations Kairoi plans to develop at the Belmar Park site.
The traffic study does not include the additional traffic generated by the 777 S Wadsworth building which is directly across the street from 777 S Yarrow and is part of the Irongate office site.
Kairoi has purchased both the 777 S Wadsworth and 777 S Yarrow St sites yet has only presented the estimated traffic impacts of the 777 S Yarrow site and has withheld the impacts of the 777 S Wadsworth site across the street which may include up to 1,200 additional residential units.
As a result, actual traffic generated by the two adjacent sites owned by Kairoi could easily be 2-4 times the amount reflected in the initial traffic study.
The original traffic study also did not appear to include any estimate for delivery vehicles from Amazon, UPS, USPS, etc.
The assumption for many years has been that high-density housing characterized by many people living together in a building would save energy compared to low-rise housing.
However, now that the energy use of high-density housing has actually been studied, it turns out that high-density housing uses significantly more energy per capita per year. Plus, the embodied energy of high-density housing is much higher.
“We estimate that downtown high-rise living in Chicago, IL accounts for approximately 25% more life-cycle energy per person per year than suburban low-rise living, on average, contrary to some common beliefs (best estimates were ~141 and ~113 GJ/person/year, respectively).”
The finding of higher GHG emissions also has been duplicated by Australian researchers:
High-density housing is more expensive to construct per square foot and is therefore not conducive to providing affordable housing. Developers do not build high-density housing that is affordable to low-income residents unless it is subsidized because the construction cost is prohibitive.
If ‘affordable’ uses the definition of annual rent not exceeding 30% of area median income (AMI), developers sometimes include a few units in that rental range. So if the AMI is $100,000 per year, annual rent of $30,000 would be considered ‘affordable’.
Lakewood has run financial modeling to evaluate whether Urban Infill Apartment housing is financially feasible to produce if a percentage of units are required to be ‘affordable’. Lakewood concluded:
Each of the prototypical housing developments are infeasible when hypothetical inclusionary zoning requirements are applied.
The estimated feasibility gaps range from approximately $14,000 to $49,000 per total housing unit when the hypothetical inclusionary zoning requirements are applied to each housing prototype.
Accordingly, a “mandatory” inclusionary zoning policy is not recommended for Lakewood.
Lakewood Strategic Housing Plan – May 2023 p.41
Living in a high-rise tower in the city is much less environmentally sustainable than moving to a house in the suburbs and adding to the urban sprawl, a shock new study has found.
In a revelation that challenges the long-held assumption that it’s more efficient to reside in a vertical village than a horizontal one, the three-year US study shows that apartment dwellers consume more energy, spend more of their time travelling and use their cars more.
“The findings are a little surprising to us all,” says Dr Anthony Wood, executive director of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), a research professor in the college of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and co-author of the landmark report.
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Thank You for your understanding!
A purpose of this website is as an additional venue to report news and information related to Lakewood, Colorado with emphasis on Belmar Park. We also advocate for community action to save Belmar Park and other habitats, opens spaces and parks from adverse influences which may include major demolition, extreme construction, tree removal, habitat destruction, habitat degradation, etc.
The logo includes the words ‘Support Community Action’ and is meant to encourage the shared value that constructive community action can help preserve and enhance the many important benefits and features of parks and open spaces including bird and wildlife habitats. Therefore, we urge everyone to share this common value and advocate on behalf of preserving and enhancing Belmar Park and all habitats.