These days, the City of Golden has lots of plans. We have a Transportation Master Plan, a Clear Creek Master Plan, a Parks Master Plan, an Open Space Master Plan and a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. We have a series of neighborhood plans, and the One Plan to Rule Them All–the Comprehensive Plan.
56 Years Ago
The Golden Opportunity Plan preceded all of these. It was commissioned in 1969, at a time when suburban sprawl was radiating out of Denver like a seismic wave. Many in Golden feared that we would lose our individual character. Some feared that having a plan would impede growth. Others feared that not having a plan would impede growth. The consultant who wrote the plan pronounced that “We should not and cannot demean humanity by stopping growth.”
The Golden Opportunity Plan included several interesting ideas.
1) The 12th Street residential area would be redeveloped into stores and offices. The houses there were considered old and tired and in need of urban renewal.
2) 12th Street would continue west to intersect with Hwy 6. This would go through School of Mines land (past the football stadium). The Mines president said he would be amenable to that, provided the City approved shutting down Illinois Street through the campus.
3) 12th Street from Ford all the way to the School of Mines would become a pedestrian mall.
4) North and South Table Mountain would be developed for residential use. Since it would be expensive to bring water and sewer service to the mesas, the plan suggested that those homes rely on wells and septic systems.
5) Since it would be expensive to build roads to the mountaintop, the plan recommended an aerial tramway from South Table Mountain to downtown Golden, and another from Lookout Mountain to downtown Golden.
The plan was presented to the Planning Commission in 1970. After that, it languished and was never approved by City Council. In October of 1971, the City Attorney asked Council to vote on the plan, because he said our zoning regulations were invalid until the plan was approved.
The Planning Commission discussed it again in 1972. They recommended that Council pass it, with a few caveats. They thought the aerial tramways were a bad idea because they went over people’s houses. They said we needed a lot more parks and should make an inventory of historical sites. Golden businessmen were protesting the idea of turning 12th Street into a pedestrian mall, because it would cause traffic snarls.
City Council finally reviewed the plan in August of 1972. They approved everything except the zoning pages (which was what the City Attorney had said they most needed). Without the zoning sections, the plan had no legal force.
After that, the plan was only referred to with a notes of derision.
In 1973, a Transcript editorial said, “Golden had a plan once, remember it? It was the Golden Opportunity Plan and it sat around for a year before council decided to approve it. It has since, it seems, been placed squarely on the shelf where it will probably stay and the devil take the city’s future.”
In 1974, the Planning Commission asked City Council to either resurrect or bury the plan. Council did neither.
For years afterward, people would ask what happened to the Golden Improvement Plan. The question echoed in Transcript articles into the 1980s.
