YOUR AD HERE »

JD and Lynn Donovan: Not elitists

JD and Lynn Donovan
Frisco

We have tried mightily to stay out of the letter-writing campaigns for Peak One Housing-gate, but after reading the recent editorial by Bob Bloch, and more specifically the Yuppyville letter from Kevin Rodden, we feel a need to speak up. As have others penning these letters, we state that we are not opposed to affordable housing. We fully understand what has happened to the housing market since we bought our home 22 years ago, and further understand the difficulties faced by people trying to purchase homes today.

That said, we are fascinated by the comments about “South Side millionaires” and Frisco elites. Have the people making these comments ever been to the Peak One area neighborhood? Yes, Mountain Side is adjacent, and there may be as many as a half a dozen homes that go over a million dollars, but there is a significant part of the neighborhood, to which we belong, that is composed of older, smaller, single family homes and townhomes largely built very close to the street. We live in a very old, 900-square-foot cabin, and probably always will, because we cannot afford to upgrade on our blue collar incomes. Mr. Rodden, I do believe we may be your lower class underachievers.

Our neighborhood is a wonderful place that we love living in. We love our neighbors too, many of whom are young people raising children in their first homes. By virtue of caring about this wonderful neighborhood, we care about developments proposed for it. We have been informed that this makes us NIMBYs. Mr. Bloch, with all due respect to our hard-working officials, elected and otherwise, some fairly scary proposals have been bandied about for the Peak One parcel. They are scary because they would place unacceptable density on a small piece of land in an already fairly dense neighborhood. The resulting traffic problems are absolutely a concern to us. Additionally, no matter why the land may have been purchased, you are right; it is used as a neighborhood park. This is a tremendous amenity in a part of town which has no other parks.



We know that Frisco residents will vote their values in this controversy. It may be decided that affordable housing is the highest and best use of this parcel, and we respect that. But we also think that the people reading these letters need to know that all of us on the south side of town who have concerns about our neighborhood are neither millionaires nor elitists.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.