A plan authorizing ticketed events at 14 Denver parks as a way to raise money and increase activity has run into opposition from people who fear traffic and other problems the events will bring to their neighborhoods.
The recommendation, which grew out of an aborted plan to hold a multi-day music festival in City Park, will come before the city’s parks and recreation advisory board tonight.
The Inner-Neighborhood Cooperation, which represents nearly half of the more than 200 registered neighborhood organizations in the city, passed a resolution blasting the proposal. Another neighborhood group, Greater Park Hill Inc., also is opposed.
Critics are worried about concertgoers trampling grass and clogging neighborhood streets, among other concerns.
The pushback has bewildered parks officials, who say the practice is universally accepted throughout the nation, including in other communities in Colorado. For example, Aspen holds a food and wine festival with tickets going for more than $1,000 a day.
City officials say they’ve crafted a policy that takes neighbors’ concerns into account, and they tout the benefits from increased activity.
“If it’s a dead park, crime takes hold,” said Chantal Unfug, a special adviser to the Department of Parks and Recreation. “The more fun family events, jazz concerts and public art programs there are in a park, the less crime there is.”
Ticketed events would also be a moneymaker for the department. City officials want to charge a 10 percent seat tax and also want to receive a percentage of the gross receipts from ticket sales. Half of the city’s portion of the gross receipts would go toward improving parks where events are held. The rest would go to the city’s parks-maintenance fund.
Just how much revenue is at stake isn’t known yet, Unfug said, but she said a recent decision by the City Council to allow a Massachusetts firm to set up a 1,400-seat movie theater at Civic Center for 50 days could end up netting the city as much as $400,000 over three years.
But opponents in Denver are deeply concerned and see the push as upending what they view as a long-held precedent that parks space should remain free and accessible all the time.
Dave Felice, a neighborhood leader who lives near City Park, e-mailed City Council president Jeanne Robb, to say anything that takes place there affects his neighborhood.
“This is a park located in the midst of historic, densely populated residential urban neighborhoods,” he said.
He said voters should be asked to approve the admission-based events plan or asked whether the city should build a special park where they could be held.
Other cities, ranging from Austin, Texas, to Seattle, allow ticketed events in parks, though there are differences on how fees are collected and apportioned and just what is allowed.
In Denver, city officials and opponents are so far apart that they can’t even agree on basic concepts. Opponents say the city charter bars for-profit events in city parks and the concept is a radical departure. City officials say the practice has always been allowed and that they’re merely codifying and clarifying.
The ticketing issue came to the fore in 2007 when An schutz Entertainment Group announced plans for a music and arts festival at City Park. After the Denver Zoo raised concerns, AEG scuttled the plans for the festival, which had been expected to attract 60,000 revelers a day.
A task force, convened as a result of that effort, met for 12 months and ended up offering the plan for smaller fee-based events in city parks.
The proposal would allow ticketed events in City Park, Civic Center, Confluence Park, Creek Front Park, Denver Performing Art Sculpture Park, Skyline Park, Sloan’s Lake Park, Central Park in Stapleton, Parkfield Park, Ruby Hill Park and Lowry Great Lawn, Montclair Civic Building, Chief Hosa Lodge, Washington Park Boathouse, and Centennial Gardens.
In most of the parks, no more than one ticketed event with more than 350 patrons would be allowed within 12 days, and no more than an additional three such events shall be held per month. The events also would be limited to no more than 20 percent of a park or 20 acres, whichever is smaller.
The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board takes up the issue at 6 p.m. today at Bogey’s on the Park restaurant at City Park Golf Course, 2500 York St.
Parks and recreation manager Kevin Patterson will have the final say.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
