Lakewood planning board to decide fate of men’s correction facility

A contentious 6 1/2-hour meeting attended by about 250 residents over the relocation of a men’s community corrections center near West 8th Avenue and Quail Street in Lakewood ended without a decision.

The city of Lakewood’s planning board, meeting Sept. 2, tabled the issue just after 1:30 a.m. It was scheduled to make a decision at Wednesday’s meeting (Sept. 9), after press deadline. (Go to coloradocommunitymedia.com for the latest coverage.)

“We contend that this is the wrong location for this facility,” said Diane Duffey, local resident and president of the Daniels Welchester Homeowner’s Association, after the Sept. 2 meeting. “We were not speaking from a position of fear. We were speaking from facts.”

The community corrections program is now operated out of the historic New York Building at 1651 Kendall St. in Lakewood. Jefferson County has been searching for a new location for a number of years because the building is in dire need of repairs and maintenance and could require up to $ 5 million to bring it up to code, Jefferson County Manager Ralph Schell said.

The county has entered into an agreement with Littleton Group LLC for the design-build and purchase of a $ 14 million building at West 8th Avenue and Quail Street. However, it is contingent on the Lakewood planning board approving a special use permit for the facility.

On Aug. 18, Jefferson County commissioners postponed signing the purchase-sale agreement with the Littleton Group until the Lakewood planning board makes a decision.

The proposed location has raised many concerns among the area’s residents and businesses.

Among them is the increased number of offenders that would live in the area, said Duffey, one of 70 people who spoke at the Sept. 2 meeting.

A women’s community corrections facility also is about 1,000 yards from the proposed site for the men’s facility. It has a capacity of 140 people, and the men’s facility could hold 250 people, she said.

Another concern is the vulnerability of nearby community members, Duffey said. A school is a couple of blocks away on 10th Street, a public health building that serves families and children is nearby, and the Developmental Disabilities Resource Center is directly across the street, she said.

Although the facility is in Lakewood, Jefferson County oversees its funding. Day-to-day operations of the community corrections facilities are contracted to Intervention Community Corrections Services, a private nonprofit community corrections agency.

The West 8th Avenue and Quail Street location is not the first proposed site. Other locations have also generated controversy.

“There is no place in Jefferson County that there would not be controversy, ” Schell said.

Golden Transcript – Latest Stories