CDOT commits $2M to offset I-70 displacement
A year ago, a coalition of neighborhood activists in northeast Denver sounded a clarion call for government leaders to address the displacement of dozens of families by the upcoming Interstate 70 expansion project.
Since then, their plea for financial help with the formation of a land trust and other targeted affordable housing strategies has been met with plenty of frustration and roadblocks. But the activists notched a huge win Monday: a $2 million funding commitment from the Colorado Department of Transportation.
The money, announced at a news conference, will go to the Globeville/ElyriaSwansea Affordable Housing Collaborative. Joining the coalition in that new organization are two partners that bring policy expertise — Brothers Redevelopment, a nonprofit housing group, and the Colorado Community Land Trust, which began by overseeing the building of about 200 deed-restricted homes in a land-trust model in Lowry.
The partners plan to place single-family homes with willing owners in a community land trust that keeps them affordable for generations, starting with five homes bought by Brothers in the last year. Other parts of the program aim to spur the development of new low-income housing, guide renters into homeownership and use $300,000 to fix up deteriorating houses.
CDOT on Friday will have a groundbreaking ceremony for the four-year, $1.2 billion highway project, which will widen I-70 and add express toll lanes between Interstate 25 in Denver and Chambers Road in Aurora.
The most intensive work will be in Elyria-Swansea, where the raised 1.8-mile viaduct will be replaced by a sunken, mostly open-air section of highway. Near Swansea Elementary, the highway span will be topped by a 4-acre park.
To make room, CDOT targeted 56 homes and 17 businesses for demolition. The state has paid nearly $96 million to buy those properties and relocate families, including renters.
“When 50-plus homes are taken out the heart of the community, you lose friends and neighbors. You lose children in schools,” City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega said during the news conference outside Focus Points Family Resource Center, 2501 48th Ave.
“The $2 million that’s being received here today attracts and leverages other resources to help bring more rooftops and more neighbors to the community and maintain the viability of the schools and the GES neighborhoods,” she said.
Josh Laipply, CDOT’s chief engineer, said affordable housing “is something that is key to Denver, and especially key to this community.”
CDOT’s money fulfills one of 148 community commitments it made during the federal environmental review process for the I-70 project. The parkland cover was another commitment, and CDOT and the city also have paid for fixes and upgrades to about 250 homes near I-70 to help keep out construction noise and dust.
The housing collaborative was selected through a competitive proposal process earlier this year.
CDOT’s money brings a win for advocates who have been frustrated with the slow pace of city housing officials’ consideration of their request for city investment in a community land trust. But Nola Miguel, the director of the Globeville/ElyriaSwansea Coalition Organizing for Health and Housing Justice, said the new land trust enabled by CDOT’s money likely will be small in terms of the number of properties unless other programs or local government can offer assistance.
Councilman Albus Brooks, who represents the area, signaled that city economic development officials still were considering some kind of contribution, along with other ways to help. He cited an in-theworks zoning change for the area that would allow for the building of accessory dwelling units, known as granny flats and backyard cottages.
Miguel said CDOT’s housing commitment was particularly important at a time when a “cataclysmic confluence of multi-million dollar projects” was set to descend upon the area. Those include the city-led $1 billion National Western Center project.
“This is a seed,” she said, “that will grow the Globeville/Elyria-Swansea community land trust into a permanent effort that represents and drives the neighborhood vision for the long term.”