City of Lakewood
Audio By Carbonatix
There is a glaring lack of long-term thinking when it comes to neighborhood continuity and planning in Lakewood.
City council’s radical rezoning is a blueprint for rushed, cheap, builder-grade development over thoughtful planning. Mature trees? Bulldozed for convenience. Infrastructure for fire, water, traffic, parks? Afterthoughts, already failing to keep up with current demands. Adding correlating parks and open spaces for the huge increase in population over the last decade? None. Tens of thousands of new residents have already been crammed in, and they hope to cram in tens of thousands more. All this while homes and apartments sit vacant and residents flee Colorado like something contagious is in the air. And honestly? They’re not wrong. The corruption is so obvious, it’s like watching a rigged game where the house already knows it wins.
Meanwhile, our government keeps repeating the same lie: “We need more housing.” No. We don’t. Hundreds of homes currently sit empty, and buyers aren’t magically appearing. Supply isn’t the problem. Adding more “units” won’t make housing affordable. It will make it worse. Developers won’t build homes anyone can actually afford. They build what makes them profit. Period! And we’ve all seen them: million-dollar, three-story skinny homes crammed lot line to lot line. Not everybody wants that. People with mobility issues or older folks who can’t use stairs? Totally impractical.
And that word “affordable”? It’s a joke. One person’s “affordable” is another family’s impossibility. That word is now thrown around like a cheap marketing slogan with no real meaning.
The truth? “Affordable housing” isn’t about tossing up more units. It’s about building the right homes for the right people. But developers don’t care. They cram in apartment units like sardines, cut every corner, and price them at market-rate or luxury prices, not for real families struggling to get a foothold. Real affordability means protecting long-term residents, preserving neighborhood character, and actually matching incomes.
And here’s the kicker: These radical rezoning changes don’t require a single affordable home. Not one. If it’s not in the code, it’s not happening. FULL STOP. Lakewood isn’t solving housing. It’s handing a blank check to developers and calling it “progress” while lying to all of us citizens at the same time. That’s not planning. That’s theft dressed up as policy.
Guess who walks away smiling? Developers, investors with deep pockets, and city officials enjoying the perks of power. Affordable starter homes with a backyard like the 1950s? Gone. But council lies and gaslights us into thinking they can deliver that American Dream today. They can’t. The world has billions more people than the 1950s. Unlimited growth has limits, and the planet’s carrying capacity isn’t negotiable.
Look around. Record-high December temperatures. Trees sprouting green buds in the middle of winter. How much more obvious does it have to get before we stop cramming people in and pretending the Earth will just keep taking it, even right here in our own backyards in Lakewood?
Lakewood is systematically erasing what made it desirable: large lots, mature trees, historic homes, neighborhoods with real history and pride of ownership. In their place? Lot-line-to-lot-line apartment towers built from cheap materials that will crumble in a few years, with zero connection to the people or places already here.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Look at Cherry Hills Village: Strict zoning early on preserved character, large lots and historic homes, and turned that vision into generational wealth. Lakewood’s council is doing the exact opposite: ignoring history, ignoring identity, ignoring residents and selling out neighborhoods to short-term investors and billionaire developer buddies.
Growth without vision isn’t progress. It’s destruction. Once neighborhood character is gone, it’s gone forever. Lakewood’s current path? It’s like trading a priceless family heirloom for a crumbling pile of used IKEA furniture.
Wake up, Lakewood. Speak up to our city council before they erase everything and everyone who actually cares about this place. Don’t wait.
Email CityCouncilMembers@Lakewood.org. Make a public post that will go on the record on Lakewoodspeaks.org. Show up in person to a city council meeting to speak up about this; the next one is Monday, January 12, at 480 South Allison Parkway.