Hughes Update

Hughes Civic Assembly Update from OMBA’s Executive Director, Kenny Bearden,

We want to share some exciting updates about the Hughes property and the Civic Assembly process the City of Fort Collins has undertaken to determine how best to support the community in the future use of this space.

In Fall 2024, Fort Collins City Council approved $150,000 to conduct a Civic Assembly process, in which a randomized yet representative selection of 20 individuals was conducted to create a group of delegates. These delegates then heard from many different interest groups, city staff, relevant planning professionals, and reviewed prior public engagement results. They were tasked with listening to many different viewpoints, processing that information, and ultimately making a recommendation to the City Council on what they think would best represent our community's wants and needs for the future use of the Hughes property—while ensuring those recommendations meet the existing ballot language from 2021.

You can view the Civic Assembly's Final Report here.

The delegates met for four days over two weekends – April 12–13 and May 3–4. OMBA was requested to present to the delegates on April 13 and asked to be a panelist on May 3. We excitedly participated in both while strongly advocating for bike park amenities and multi-use trails to be included as part of a larger multi-use space.

We are very excited to share that the delegates overwhelmingly supported and recommended a bike park and multi-use trails to be included in the Hughes property!!!

As exciting as this is, we still have a few more steps before this becomes reality. The Civic Assembly delegates will make official recommendations to the Fort Collins City Council at the May 25th Council Work Session. The council will have to vote later (likely July–August) to approve these recommendations.

Additionally, another organization is attempting to bypass this community process by pursuing a separate ballot initiative to designate the entire property as a Natural Area, with the stated objective of allowing no additional use of the space apart from the current disc golf and winter sledding. However, neither of these activities is currently permitted in any other Natural Area property, making even these uses highly questionable.

PATHS frequently appears in public spaces to gather signatures for this initiative. If you encounter any of their signature stations, PLEASE be very cautious about what they are saying, as we have received numerous reports indicating a disconnect between their statements and the actual initiative.

It's also possible that the City of Fort Collins puts its own initiative on the ballot, meaning the winning initiative would receive the most "For" votes.

THANK YOU to each of you who have provided comments throughout this process; to all of those who served as Community Guides; to each of the Civic Assembly delegates; and to city staff and Healthy Democracy for a thorough and open process.

We heard this quote from one of the delegates after their process was completed:
“This was the most democratic process I have ever seen in my life.”

We will continue to provide updates on this process as it moves ahead.