Controversy Over View Plane Grows in Denver

David Sachs reports on a rising controversy in Denver, where some residents are discovering that they don't own their view. The controversy surrounds a single project, a five-story apartment building developed by Flywheel Capital in the Overland Park neighborhood in the south of Denver. The article reports from the perspective of the owners of a single-family home located in one of the city's 14 view planes, which protect the views from public places. The new apartment building does not interrupt the panorama from Harvard Gulch Park, so the development has been approved by the City Council.

The owners of the aforementioned single-family home will still have uninterrupted views from the second and third stories of their home. Meanwhile, the new apartment building will include eight to ten income restricted apartments, affordable to households with two income earners making $59,000 a year, and:

Some tenants [of the new building] will have exceptional views of the mountains. The development, OK’d by the Denver City Council last month, will supplant a couple of sprawly parking lots, a tire shop and a used-car dealership.