Hideous Houses in Highland

Ray Defa, right, lives in the West Highland neighborhood being considered for rezoning, and is one of its major proponents. I live in one of the highest demolition areas in northwest Denver, he says, explaining old, single-family residences in northwest Denver are being destroyed at an average rate of one a week, up from a total of nine during all of 2004. The problem, he says, is that, despite the areas largely single-family character, in the 1950s most of it was re-zoned R2, which allowed for multi-unit residences, to encourage denser development. While that didnt happen, its happening now, he says, with developers scraping off old homes in and around super-hot Highland neighborhoods to replace with big-box multiplexes that are good for their bottom line but not for neighbors. Lately the scrape-off frenzy has reached a fever pitch, says April Butler, left, whos been working on fixing the old house behind her for 15 years: Ive had developers drive onto my property and yell at me to sell my property because I am underutilizing it.