![]() “Our mayor has been a true advocate of parks,” Gilmore said. Gilmore credited Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration for its desire to protect parkland. We are anxious to continue the process.”ĭenver Parks and Recreation deputy director Scott Gilmore has been spearheading the effort to allocate parkland and has worked closely with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the INC subcommittee during the designation process. “I think they have made a good-faith effort. “I think it’s been one of the silver linings that came out of Hentzell Park discussion,” said Brad Cameron, a member of a parks designation subcommittee in the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation, a nonprofit advocate for neighborhood organizations. Since the Hampden Heights Open Space situation - most of what remains has been set aside as part of Hentzell Park - the process has been positive according to some park advocates who have worked with the city on designations during the past three-plus years. The policy had been used as draft since the administration of former Mayor John Hickenlooper but wasn’t formally adopted until now. The most recent round of designations earmarked just less than 200 acres of parkland and the parks department also officially adopted a parks designation policy, per the suggestion of city auditor Timothy O’Brien. Denver Parks and Recreation was formed in 1956, and the city’s eligible parkland was designated at that time. Since 2013, Denver has designated more than 1,000 acres, nearly double the amount of land that has been allocated in the past 56 years. While many park advocates were upset over the move and a lawsuit was filed to try to stop the swap, the city has worked to set aside as much parkland as possible in the past three years. Designating a park means the city can’t sell, trade or do anything to change the status of the land without a vote of the people. When the city traded an 11.5-acre piece of land in the Hampden Heights Open Space in southeast Denver to Denver Public Schools to build a school, many thought the city was trading parkland, but later learned that the land had never been designated. The difference between an open space and a park in Denver may not make a lot of difference to anyone who uses it, but it can have a substantial impact on the land’s future, as many learned in 2013.
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