When “blight” becomes a tool: How redevelopment labels unlock subsidies and eminent domain

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

It’s all blight … if you’re clever enough

I had a friend (a Catholic) who once quipped that you can do anything you want in the Catholic church as long as you can find the right priest.

I’ve thought about that quote in a variety of contexts because it’s pretty applicable. It certainly is in the Denverite article linked first below. That article details how the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) will be investigating the potential new location of the new Bronco’s stadium for evidence of blight.

Why you ask? A quote from the article details the reason:

“The study could mark another significant step in the area’s redevelopment. It could eventually lead to the establishment of an urban renewal plan. That could allow DURA to use several development powers in the area, including:”

–”Granting tax subsidies to developers to pay for construction.”

–”Using eminent domain to force current property owners to sell their land to make way for the stadium and adjoining development.”

I.e. by getting the right priest to sign off on the appropriate characterization, you can do what you’d like.

You can take from some to give to the poor, struggling Denver Bronco’s and their owners.

You can force people to sell their land, because nothing says “public benefit” like a new stadium when the current one is far from being beyond repair.

If you would like an example from my neck of the woods (Sterling Urban Renewal Authority’s effort to extend their district and offer more tax breaks to developers), I have a picture gallery in an earlier newsletter linked second below. These photos detail the horrors that we driving down Main St. in Sterling must witness; they show the gauntlet we must run daily.

I’ll leave it to you to look through the gallery, but in brief, blight is in the eye of the beholder. As such, if the money gets high enough, anything at all qualifies!

Care to bet as to whether the new location for the stadium gets blighted?

https://denverite.com/2026/02/24/broncos-new-stadium-blight-burnham-yard

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/sterlings-urban-renewal-authority?utm_source=publication-search

Related:

An earlier newsletter on the ways that the Broncos can claim to not use public money . . . but still use public money.

https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/broncos-and-public-money-the-lefty?utm_source=publication-search

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Only a tiny percentage of Ag land is lost to solar.

The Sun article linked at bottom profiles a study by the Colorado Solar and Storage Association** which shows that, while Colorado is losing farmland, solar arrays have only taken up 1% of that land. This puts it behind (per the study), farmland lost to suburban growth.

I didn’t read deeply into the study, so I will stipulate to their numbers. That is, I doubt they’re playing games. Maybe the percentage is higher (2%, 4%), but the broad strokes strike me as pretty likely even if the precise number is not 1%.

Beyond the number and its low value, however, I can’t help but think that perhaps the study’s purpose (as well as that of the article?) is to confound you.

The reason I say this is illustrated by the following non-contiguous quotes (copied here with links intact):

“Nevertheless, when solar developers have turned up in rural counties with plans for utility-scale solar farms, covering hundreds of acres, there has been concern and pushback.”

“Prompted by the local pushback, the legislature passed a bill in 2024 directing the Colorado Energy Office and the Department of Natural Resources to evaluate local government permitting processes. An early draft of the bill included moving permitting of solar projects to the state. The Colorado Energy Office surveyed solar developers and some county and municipal officials about the impact of local rules and concluded that ‘procedural hurdles, community opposition, land use concerns, and regulatory gaps can impact projects.’”

“The survey, released in October, listed nine solar projects that had been rejected or withdrawn and the complex regulatory situation in Colorado remains, Will Toor, the Colorado Energy Office executive director, said. ‘I think the highly variable policies that you see across the state that we saw in that report remain,’ Toor said. ‘I believe that there’s still a wide variation across the state.’”

A report, profiled in a friendly newspaper, to tell us all how little land is taken by solar while at the same time talking about those pesky locals and their opposition.

Whether or not 1%, 10%, 0.5% of the land is taken by solar is a distraction. It’s a distraction from what is the more important question.

Who decides whether there will be solar and where?

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.