DENVER — More than 1,000 people have signed a petition to ‘Save Broadway Bark’, a dog park located on Dakota and Cherokee Street in the Broadway Park area.
The call to action comes after a change in state law concerning tax exemptions that the park's owners say could force it to close.
HB25-1289, passed in 2025, requires property tax exemption to be reviewed if there is a conflict of interest between property owners and the special district board of directors.
Though the law does not mean an automatic denial of the property tax exemption, the property owners of the park, D4 Urban, say if they don’t get their tax exemption reinstated, they won’t be able to afford to keep the park open.
“It [the exemption] offsets the costs of maintenance and operation of the park,” said D4 Urban CEO, Dan Cohen.
Cohen says D4 Urban has spent a quarter of a million dollars on the park since the park was created and the lease was established.
“Without the exemption, we don't have the ability to hire folks to clean the park, there's equipment and lighting and structures that need to be maintained within the park, there's insurance that needs to be maintained on the park. There's a liability associated with operating the park, and without the tax-exempt incentive, it's difficult to justify having it remain open,” Cohen said.
Cohen says D4 Urban got notification from the assessor’s office a couple months ago and had to start the process of reinstating the tax exemption.
Cohen says the petition and letters from neighborhood organizations show support for the park, which he says he felt was important to prove to city leaders the public purpose.
“The petition was created through a website to show that there is public desire for this park to remain, and we have, you know, over 1000 signatures... and a couple hundred comments that have come from members of the community that use the park on a on a very frequent basis,” he said.
Members of the community like Owen Henning and his year-and-a-half-year-old foster dog, Bro Bro.
“We come here probably once or twice a day,” said Henning, noting that it is the only off-leash dog park in his neighborhood.
When Denver7 shared with Henning the petition circulating to save the park, it wasn’t necessarily something he had expected to hear.
“It doesn't seem like something that they would, that would be taken away, or would even be a question,” he said.
He also emphasized the convenience of the park.
"There's other other parks, just not near, not as close to home, so longer drives across the across Denver."
Flor Alvidrez echoed the same issue, adding that she has received hundreds of emails from people concerned about losing the park.
“My stance is that we need dog parks, we need dog parks now than more than ever,” she said.
The dog park falls under her district, District 7, and it will be up to her and her council members to decide whether to reinstate the park’s property tax exemption.
“I think because there have been bad actors in the past that haven't built anything on their land, so they call it a park. The assessor was struggling to tax them because they were finding this loophole,” she explained.
But in an attempt to close the “loophole” she doesn’t want the law to impact “good actors.”
She added that the owners garnering community support is a solution for the time being.
"I think that the state legislature may need to take another look at this bill next year to see if there's a better process than putting it before city councils, but for the time being, the solution is to for the owner to petition for the tax exemption to show the community support for this park, and to get the buy-in from not just me, but at least six of my colleagues to get this tax exemption extended."
From her perspective, Broadway Bark meets the requirements of receiving a tax exemption.
“It has a lot of amenities. It's not a for-profit thing, it's for the community, it's open to the public, and I think we have to figure out what those measurements are for tax exemption,” she said.
“It should be open to anybody in the community, and from my understanding, that's where we are right now,” she added.
Cohen says D4 Urban submitted their request for the property exemption this week.
But he believes the new process under this law creates uncertainty for people who want to bring beneficial open spaces to the area.
“I think it's fair to say that we wouldn’t have moved forward with spending the money to create the park, and setting up the maintenance and operational procedures to run the park, because we would basically be doing all that without the certainty of gaining the tax exemption,” he explained.
“If I don't have the certainty that on in the future that we're going to be able to get that exemption, it disincentivizes us to create these kinds of spaces,” he added.
A representative with the Denver Department of Finance says once the request is submitted, it will be presented to Denver City Council and they will have 63 days from when they received the request to take action.
The spokesperson added that the city did not revoke an existing exemption, but instead the conflict of interest triggered the new process to “ensure the property tax exemption is valid and fairly applied.”
Cohen says while they are in the process of reinstating the tax exemption, they are continuing to maintain the park through the district and are paying the taxes during this time while the tax exemption is under review.
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