RTD land measure clears panel

By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A measure to limit how RTD uses land that it condemns made it through a House committee Tuesday, buoyed by emotional testimony from landowners, but with an amendment that places another hurdle in its path.

The House Transportation and Energy Committee voted 9-4 to restrict RTD from having commercial or residential projects on transit station land it gets through eminent domain.

HB 1278, sponsored by Reps. Al White, R-Hayden, and Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, is being pushed by landowners within the path of RTD's FasTracks West Corridor light-rail project - even though the bill won't stop RTD from condemning their land.

The property owners say that RTD intends to use their property not only for transit, but also to solicit developers to build commercial projects on the sites of their homes or businesses.

Several choked up during their testimony, including disabled Vietnam Marine veteran Dan Gallegos, who said that his parents never received just compensation when RTD acquired their service station, home and two rental houses in Five Points 20 years ago to build the original light-rail line.

RTD concedes that it will solicit proposals from private developers to take advantage of the remaining building rights on the property that RTD doesn't need for parking, but says such "transit-oriented development" is good public policy and should not be prohibited.

Landowners said such development should take place on private land next to stations, but not on land taken from them solely for transit purposes.

Galen Foster told the committee that if RTD later allows a private developer to profit from building stores, offices and condos where his house and window tinting business has operated for 23 years, he feels it's "an old-fashioned claim jump."

"You can't put a price on something that my wife and I have built for 23 years," he said of the business at 14th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard.

RTD says it needs the property for a 1,000-car parking garage at the future Wadsworth Station, with or without other development on top of and around it.

"We don't ever acquire property that we don't need for a transit purpose," Cal Marsella, RTD general manager, told the committee. "But once our transit needs are taken care of and there's an opportunity for more development there, we would like to see that not be precluded."

Current law allows RTD to have commercial development at its transit stations to serve the bus or train riders, but prohibits it from having development that "encourages automobile traffic from nontransit users."

RTD says it can authorize more development than simply newsstands or coffee shops for riders. The bill would rule that out.

Three Democrats, including committee chair Buffie McFadyen, of Pueblo, joined the committee's six Republicans to approve the bill after several amendments. One would require not only RTD but all government agencies that use condemnation power to engage in a mediation session with landowners to try to settle before going to court.

Because that is broader than the original intent of the bill to rein in RTD, and may incur new government costs, the bill was sent to the House Appropriations Committee for another hearing.