South Suburban approves Jackass Hill site plan

BY BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

After more than a year of community engagement and design planning, Jackass Hill Park in Littleton is o cially one step closer to boasting several new design elements intended to discourage the park’s misuse.

But many neighbors — who asked the City of Littleton and South Suburban Parks and Recreation District to take action to prevent after-hours usage, noise and reworks last spring — are adamantly opposed to the new site plan.

In the June 28 meeting, the South Suburban Board of Directors unanimously approved the nal site plan for the park, under the condition that sta consider several speci c community concerns as the detailed design development process unfolds.

“ is isn’t a nal point in the development,” Vice Chair Pam Eller said to the community members at the meeting. “My feeling tonight would be to try to go forward and not set this back any further because something kind of has to be done.”

Site plan details e new design plan, prepared by a landscape design rm called the Architerra Group, aims to “provide a nature park that is accessible to the community and decreases the neighbors’ concerns about nuisance activities,” according to a memo from South Suburban sta . First unveiled in September, the new plan includes several changes to the currently undeveloped parcels of land, including the addition of a concrete loop trail, soft trails to improve existing social paths, stairs and fencing at steep areas to reduce erosion, seating areas at viewpoints, interpretive elements and a nature play area for children. e new plan also involves shifting the park’s main vantage point e City of Littleton hosted a station downtown in partnership with community groups Vibrant Littleton and Littleton Social Cycle to celebrate the day.

Brynn and her family were some of dozens of cyclists who visited the downtown station celebrating Bike to Work Day, an annual event organized by a the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

Each year, the event encourages commuters in the Denver region to bike to work, “helping them save money on their commutes, improve their health and lower stress levels — all while reducing tra c congestion and improving air quality,” the website says.

Craig Giesecke, who lives a few blocks away from his son’s school in Littleton, took the opportunity to take him on a detour downtown to celebrate the day.

SEE BIKE TO WORK, P13 on the southwest side of the park back about 30 feet to prevent park visitors from seeing into nearby homes when looking towards the mountains.

In addition, the plan calls for more street parking for 8 to 10 vehicles along Sunset Drive and an Americans with Disabilities Act accessible parking spot on the south side of the park.

Mark Taylor, principal at the Architerra Group, said after-hours use and safety issues in the park are complex problems that require a multi-pronged solution.

“Some of that is management, but we think some of that is through design, too,” he said. “Right now, it doesn’t look like a public park, so I think people feel comfortable in going there and doing things they’re not supposed to be doing.”

As Taylor presented the plan details, many aspects were met with resistance from the audience. In response to images of benches and interpretive signage element examples, some in the crowd shook their heads and whispered, “No,” and “We don’t need it.”

Opposition

Seven public commenters spoke against the site plan during the meeting, many of them citing similar concerns.

Among the various speci c plan details the speakers opposed, an overarching plea arose – for Jackass Hill Park to stay as close as possible to its current form.

“Please, leave the park as is,” said one Littleton resident. “We don’t need fancy anything. We don’t need big signs telling us what the history of the park is. We don’t need any of that. We just want that beautiful square of grass left alone with a view of the mountains that you can’t get anywhere else. It is rare and wonderful.”

Speci cally, some expressed a general distaste for the proposed concrete loop. Recognizing it might be necessary for accessibility and enforcement purposes, Littleton resident Evon Holladay asked for deterrents to be put up to prevent non-authorized vehicles from driving on the path.

Some commenters also said they wanted the nature play area to be moved farther away from Prince e motion the South Suburban Board of Directors passed included a commitment to address the points from Becklenberg’s letter — minus the management suggestions — in the next stage.

In addition, commenters asked for board members to remove the parking spots from the plan, shift the proposed north seating area to prevent views into houses and plant additional vegetation to on slopes down to homes to help with erosion and drainage concerns.

Some commenters also asked for the park hour rules to be lifted on July 4 for families to watch reworks and on other days for lunar eclipses and full moons.

A letter to the district, signed by City Manager Jim Becklenberg, said Littleton is committed to working to address several of these concerns with the district as they move forward with more detailed site designs.

Speci cally, the letter said the city wants to address the location of the north seating area and the nature play area, adding a natural vegetation “fence” next to the vista overlook, vehicle deterrents on concrete pathways and avoiding impacts to existing irrigation infrastructure.

It also included a couple of management requests, but South Suburban Executive Director Rob Hanna said management changes were not involved in the site design plan and could be discussed in a future conversation.

A temporary solution

Some residents urged the district to focus more on the park’s management than its design.

“Closing the park at sunset with regular sunset patrols for the last 14 months, post the re, has mitigated the relentless public safety issues that have opted this design review in the rst place,” Holladay said.

Hanna said the increased patrol levels, which began shortly after a re in March 2022, are not sustainable for the district to maintain.

“We have seven, eight rangers that patrol 3,400 acres of parks and open space throughout the district,” he said. “ e level of service that we are giving to Jackass Hill Park right now is not sustainable with the existing personnel that we have and still giving the same level of service to the other 3,380-something acres of parks that we have.”

After listening to public comment, Treasurer Ken Lucas said he isnconicted. He asked sta what the next steps would be if the board decided to pause on the plan to listen more to the residents.

“ is whole process started because of the things that were happening out in the park,” Hanna responded, adding that keeping the current park design is an option. “But again, we cannot continue to provide the patrols that we have out there. So we could do nothing, but the likelihood of things that continued out there that the neighborhood is so upset (about), will continue on.”

Melissa Reese- acker, a planning manager for the district, said the current design already incorporated feedback from the public engagement process over the past year.

“Director Lucas, we’ve had multiple opportunities for public input,” she said. “We have already come to a compromise … We believe that we’ve come up with the best option to meet all the needs, at a compromise level, for the neighborhood and still be able to manage a park.”

“How public trust is eroded”

Due to the board’s approval, the district will now move forward with selecting a consultant for full- edged design plans. Hanna said this process will include more experts, like civil engineers, specialty designers for di erent elements, stormwater engineers and more. ose plans, which will go through the city’s development process, will include more opportunities for public comment, Hanna said.

“ is is probably a little more than halfway through the approval process,” Hanna said after the meeting. “It’s not the beginning, but it’s de nitely not the end.”

After the vote, community member Nicole Roberts said she felt like she had “just witnessed how public trust is eroded in government.”

“I’m really disappointed in the board,” she said. “And I feel like some of them tried to push back, and everything I heard from South Suburban indicated that they didn’t want to take the time to go back to city council and get public comment again. We’re rushing this through.”

Even with more chances for public comment in the next stages of the process, Roberts said she didn’t think they would make a di erence.

“I don’t trust that there’s going to be formal opportunities for the public to be heard,” she said. “I mean, having three minutes to talk in a notdeliberative way or with an unbiased facilitator, all of those things —that’s not democracy. at’s just ‘ anks for speaking, next.’”

As someone who grew up playing in Jackass Hill Park, Roberts said keeping it largely unchanged would conserve a beautiful pocket of nature in Littleton.

“It’s loud in the summer,” she said. “You cannot hear the cars on Prince because of all of life in this eld — the insects and the birds — and it’s just like, ‘God, you’re just gonna put concrete down here, too?’ … Everything is manicured, everything is managed. Can we just have, like, one place where our feet can just be on the dirt?”

Littleton Public Works Director Keith Reester said the request for proposal for the next stage of design could go out late this year.