Denver Post Perspective Feb 10, 2019
By: Harry Doby
Denver Post reporter Bruce Finley’s excellent series about the desperate need for more green space and large new parks in Denver raises several fundamental issues: Lack of available land, competition from developers for the land that is available, and equity for residents in industrial or economically deprived neighborhoods.
Since 2016, residents of Park Hill and neighboring communities have grappled with this issue over the last remaining significant parcel of open space — the 155-acre Park Hill Golf Course. The current owner of the course, Clayton Trust, is looking to sell it to help fund its mission of providing early learning opportunities for children. The golf course, built in 1930, is zoned for open space-recreation, not development. Since 1997 it has been explicitly protected by a perpetual conservation easement that Denver taxpayers paid $2 million for under the administration of former Mayor Wellington Webb.