Arvadans Mobilize Against the Beltway - Public Meeting Jan. 19th

[As published in the Denver Post on Jan. 19, 2012]

It continues to amaze me that Arvadans accept their political leaders’ pro-development, pro-beltway stance, since they’re the ones who will pay for it in so many ways — increased congestion, more pollution, and even the specter of air-borne plutonium from disturbing the contaminated soil in and around Rocky Flats.

Most current Arvadans weren’t here and wouldn’t remember the 1969 fire at Rocky Flats — at the height of its production of plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. Because of that fire, people learned that plutonium had been spewed downwind toward Arvada.

Below is a map showing where soil was contaminated by plutonium releases. Disturbing the dirt on the eastern edge of Rocky Flats with its plutonium-rich soil poses health risks for all Arvadans.

A public meeting on this subject is being held  Jan. 19th, at 7 pm at the Jaycee Building, 5640 Yukon St. in Old Towne Arvada.  I’m one of the featured speakers.

Jeffco Planning Commission Promotes Blight

[Published with my column in the Denver Post, on Jan. 12, 2012]

What is “smart growth”?

In November, the Jeffco Planning Commission approved a revision to the North Plains Area Plan, designating over 1,000 acres of open land west of Highway 93 as a new “Urban Activity Center.”  Although this didn’t constitute a rezoning of what is currently agricultural land, it means that a future request for urban-style rezoning would be justified as complying with the revised plan for that area.

I testified against the redesignation, and pointed out that promoting that kind of sprawl — the kind which has transformed the areas through which C-470 and E-470 pass — actually promotes blight in the older developed areas.

Creating more and more suburban opportunities for overbuilding merely promotes sprawl, but it also promotes continued abandonment of older areas.  A “smart growth” strategy, in my opinion, would only open outer agricultural areas to development as a shortage of developable land is perceived in the inner urban areas.

By contract, the building of transit lines, such as TREX and FasTracks, promotes smart growth. I recently learned, for example, that there has been $6 billion of economic development along the TREX corridor since that transit line opened.