In the seven years since voters OK’d a 0.25 percent sales tax to fund open-space acquisition, parks and water resources, Arapahoe County has done a pretty good job of assembling swaths of green spaces and buffers between communities.
But a new Open Space Master Plan will help the county make the most of those spaces, linking them with trails and encouraging different types of open space in parts of the county that have different development potential.
“Right now, in my opinion, it’s a top-10 program in the country, and they can only go from there and make it better,” said Chuck Flink, president of Greenways Inc., the lead consultant on the county’s new open-space master plan.
The plan for western Arapahoe County, where the majority of the people live, is to improve on the system of trails, open space and parks. Eastern Arapahoe County is mostly rural, so the county plans to protect that through conservation easements — making deals with property owners to ensure those lands remain agricultural.
The middle part of the county is where most of the growth is planned. The master plan calls for ensuring there are plenty of parks and water resources.
“We’ve implemented some of these things, but we needed to formalize it in a policy,” said county Commissioner Rod Bockenfeld.
Arapahoe County has about 15,000 acres of protected open space, said county spokeswoman Nichole Parmelly.
The sales tax for open space raises about $18 million annually. Half is distributed to the cities for their own projects and half goes to the county. Of the $9 million the county receives, 12 percent is put up for competitive grants for cities and special recreation districts.
The master plan originally included a recommendation that the county ask to continue the tax, which expires in 2013, in the 2011 election.
However, Bockenfeld said, the board decided to leave out the recommendation and instead pose the question this fall — which coincides with the gubernatorial election — or in 2012, to catch the wave of presidential-election voters.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
