Neighbors unanimously reject plan for supermarket development

Developer Dan Yacovetta pitches his plan to develop a vacant 15.5-acre lot at Kipling and Alameda.

LAKEWOOD – A plan to develop a supermarket, gas station and retail shops on a 15.5 acres near the Federal Center failed to pass muster with neighbors of the parcel Wednesday night.

Developer Dan Yacovetta, who wants to build a shopping area anchored by a Safeway Grocery Store on the southeast corner of Kipling Street and West Alameda Avenue, met with members of the Alameda Homes and Sun Valley neighborhood organizations to test the waters.

The idea, which would require rezoning the former hay pasture, seems to have drowned in the torrent of opposition that followed.

“I’m not here to start World War III. If you say, after our first meeting, that you don’t want it, we’ll go away,” Yacovetta said before launching into his presentation based on a similar project he is developing in Fort Collins.

That project, he said, was initially opposed by surrounding residents. Out of the 50 people objecting to that project “I changed the minds of 45,” the developer said.

Plans for the Lakewood project are barely off the ground and the land is not even under contract Yacovetta said.

The project would also include a sporting goods store, fast food restaurants including a McDonald’s and another fast food site, retail shops and a filling station.

As the more than four dozen neighbors began firing questions about the project, it became obvious the meeting was not going Yacovetta’s way.

The audience asked pointed questions about traffic, noise, hours of operation, access, buffers and the need for another Safeway store in the area.

“I don’t think you could have tried harder to find something we don’t want,” said one woman, who didn’t identify herself.

That comment defined the neighbors’ position.

After Yacovetta and his engineer Joe Jehn, left the meeting, the associations’ members voted unanimously against the development plan, which has not yet been presented to City Hall staff.

“My personal opinion? We don’t want the damn thing,” said Ken Abramovitz, president of the Alameda Homes Association.

Roger Merriman, the association’s vice-president, said the plan doesn’t comply with either the neighborhood’s West Alameda Corridor Plan or the city’s Comprehensive Plan.

“Alameda and Garrison is already flagged as the (area’s) commercial center,” Merriman said. “This is the wrong place for it. The access is not there to support a commercial development.”

Whether Yacovetta will abandon his plans because of the total lack of support the plan received is unknown, but he should have seen it coming.

The neighborhood three years ago fought off a plan to build a 264-unit apartment complex. That plan received the endorsement of City Hall staff and initially seemed destined for City Council approval.

But the neighbors responded with a “legal protest” petition to force Council, under rules established by the City Charter, to marshal a super-majority of eight of its 11votes in order to change the parcel’s zoning.

They also mounted a convincing, hours-long argument against the Milestone Partners LLC development proposal and the rezoning request was denied.

Milestone wanted to rezone the site from 1-R, (large lot residential) to Planned Development, which allows a variety of higher density uses.

The ill-fated $32 million apartment complex on the site at 9990 West Alameda Ave., would have increased the neighborhood population by 200 percent and would have added a proportionate amount of traffic to the already heavy traffic, the neighbors said.

They also voiced concern that the apartments would attract crime.

But when the neighborhood started a their petition to force the super-majority vote, Milestone Partners threatened to build what it’s a spokesman described as 42 two-story  “very low-end rental town homes” that would loom over the back fences of adjacent homes.

The booklet distributed by Milestone depicted narrow streets, tiny driveways and unsightly overhead streetlights on utility poles.

But that threat failed to stem the community opposition.

And the folks at Wednesday’s meeting made it clear they are more than ready to muster their resources to fight Yacovetta’s proposed development.