Fight to keep home, business reaches end of the line

Kim Snyder and Galen Foster must leave their home and business after 25 years.

LAKEWOOD – Nearly two years of fighting RTD for their home and business took an emotional and economic toll on Galen Foster and Kim Snyder.

For 25 years, they worked to build their business, Pro-Tint, at a site they bought on the southeast corner of Wadsworth and West 14^th Ave.

It was a savvy business decision. And the area felt like home.

Snyder can quote the traffic figures by heart, and the numbers are impressive.

But that traffic became their undoing.

As the western suburbs stretched out to the foothills and beyond, Colfax became a heavily traveled commercial corridor. Wadsworth became the sluggish outlet for a flood of traffic flowing from tributary roads and streets.

Then came the call for light rail to relieve the overcrowded, under-designed street network.

With that call came the letters from RTD to a few dozen property owners along the planned FasTracks West Corridor light rail line. The letters said they were in the path of progress and should start packing their bags.

Eminent domain was on its way.

RTD needed the Pro-Tint property for a staging area initially, and eventually for a parking garage, transit officials told the Snyder and Foster.

But when the property’s possible transfer commercial redevelopment entered RTD’s plan, the couple sued, joined by two other property owners in the planned path of light rail.

” They supposedly have never been able to take it (private property) for transit-oriented development,” Snyder said.

RTD’s FasTracks plan would build a light rail line to move passengers between downtown Denver to Lakewood and the Jefferson County government campus in Golden. The major stations along the route are potential commercial bonanzas and cities along the line covet the sales tax revenue that could be generated by redevelopment.

But Foster and Snyder wouldn’t step aside and give RTD a free ride.

Instead, they launched an intense, very public battle grassroots battle.

They hired a lawyer. They marshaled the considerable forces of Colorado property-rights groups. They lobbied the legislature. They had a bake sale.

Not just any bake sale. The event drew widespread print and television news coverage. It attracted a large crowd of protesters who wielded signs and banners that virtually stopped traffic as motorists yelled encouragement or opposition. Horns blared in support. Rear-end collisions happened.

“I think this is going to be a case study,” Snyder said of the interest their fight generated.

But late last week, RTD changed its stand. It no longer can afford to redevelop the property, the agencies lawyers told Foster and Snyder. Instead, their property will be used as some sort of commons area to make the parking garage more palatable.

“Now, supposedly, we are going to be a sidewalk or plaza or something,” Snyder said. “That did change our goal because then it became just about public use,” removing the basis for the lawsuit.

“Then it became about ‘just compensation’ and eminent domain,” Snyder said. “But you can’t put those words together, ‘eminent domain’ and ‘just,’” she added.

After months of stress and expense, their court challenge evaporated. Foster and Snyder signed a settlement March 12.

“For two days afterward, I cried,” Snyder said.

They have until Feb. 28, 2010, to find another location. One nearby, they hope.

In the meantime, Snyder and Foster will be working with Lakewood city staff in a search for a suitable property.

“We hope the city comes through for us like they said they will,” Foster said. “Time will tell.”

Was the battle to save their home and business worth it?

“It was worth it if it changed a single mind. It was worth the emotional cost, it was worth the financial cost,” Snyder said. “It was worth everything.”