Residents who live within 500 feet of Interstate 70 through northeast Denver will receive up to $3.8 million of home improvements and other help to reduce dust and noise during a five-year highway expansion project.
The Denver City Council on Monday approved, 11-1, . The city agreed to chip in $1.45 million in aid on top of $2.3 million that CDOT plans to offer to residents of Elyria-Swansea.
CDOT has said its fund will target the reduction of temporary effects caused by I-70 construction. Its offerings include interior storm windows, two window air conditioners per home, attic insulation and energy bill credits.
But some council members, including Paul Kashmann, pressed city officials to offer more improvements and protections to the 268 affected homes. The city’s aid will include home assessments provided by a city contractor that potentially will result in full window and door replacements, new heating and cooling systems or a kind of high-pressure ventilation that keeps unfiltered outside air from getting in.
Some critics of the $1.2 billion I-70 project and the logistics of safeguarding homes before construction begins in the spring.
Councilman Rafael Espinoza voted no on the home improvement aid, he said, “because I believe the only true mitigation for I-70 is the removal of I-70.”
The project, which , calls for widening the six-lane freeway between Brighton Boulevard and Chambers Road to add a new managed express toll lane in each direction. Through Elyria-Swansea, an old 1.8-mile viaduct will be replaced with a sunken highway, topped at one point by a 4-acre parkland cap.