BRIGHTON — “I’m not young, I’m not stupid and it’s not going to happen.”
That’s what Debbie Palizzi told developer Jack Hoagland when he knocked on her door in 2022 and offered her $75,000 to run a stormwater pipeline from a subdivision he wanted to build through land her family has been farming for 95 years.
Now that land could fall into Hoagland’s hands. He has asked an Adams County judge to decide whether Parkland Metropolitan District, of which he is president, can exercise eminent domain on Palizzi’s property to the west of the proposed Bromley Farms neighborhood.
If that happens, Palizzi said it will destroy her ability to continue farming 65 acres off of Bromley Lane in Brighton. A pipeline across the property would also devalue its future development potential, she said, limiting how it can be subdivided. “And it will take away a 63-year-old’s and 65-year-old’s ability to make a living,” she added, referring to herself and her longtime partner, Jose Gutierrez.
The case has sparked outrage among supporters, who say the Palizzi Farm is more than just a place that grows food, it’s an anchor in a rapidly changing community. District Judge Sarah Stout’s decision is due Friday. And the case highlights a power every landowning Coloradan should understand.
Eminent domain allows a government to acquire private land if it is deemed to have a legitimate use for the public benefit. Usually the determination of what is public use is laid out in the constitution or statues, says Donald M. Ostrander, the lawyer representing Palizzi Farm, “but sometimes the courts have to make the decision of whether the alleged public use is truly public.”
In the Palizzi case, which involves housing development and a 95-year-old farm that provides the public with fresh food, it seems there are only complicated answers.
A changing landscape
Palizzi says when she was a little girl, her mom would let her get off the school bus on the north side of Bromley Lane and cross it to the farm by herself.
Now those two empty lanes are four lanes of rushing traffic.
For decades the Palizzis’ land stretched between Fourth and Seventh streets, 82 acres.
In 1999, Debbie and her mother decided to sell 17 acres on the corner of Fourth and Bromley to the city of Brighton. They got $2.6 million and Brighton got a King Soopers. “But we had to move our homes and everything,” she said.
They have dealt with eminent domain before, in 2005, when Brighton used it to secure 70 feet of their land to widen Bromley to four lanes.
“We’ve given up enough,” Palizzi said.
After Hoagland sent her an apology email for, she said, his “slap in her face,” she heard nothing more about the land or the pipeline until February.
By then, Parkland Metropolitan District No. 1 had already met with the city council to show its plans for the underground water drainage system. In September of 2023, Brighton gave eminent domain power to the district, which exists to finance, plan and develop the infrastructure for the proposed 140-acre Bromley Farm neighborhood Hoagland wants to develop east of Chambers Road.
“Three of the metropolitan district board members are the developers and the city council never notified us,” Palizzi said. “I should have been able to be there to represent myself, and I wasn’t.”
Hoagland and the two other people on the board of District No. 1, which is about an acre in size, also direct Districts No. 2 and 3. Two seats on the board are vacant.
The problem with farming over a pipeline
Brighton Mayor Greg Mills visited the farm the morning of May 29, Palizzi said.
It was the first time he’d been there, according to Palizzi, and he said, “Boy, this would have been helpful before we voted.”
Mills didn’t return The Colorado Sun’s phone call Thursday.
City council members told 9News they voted “yes” on giving eminent domain powers to the district because they were promised the pipeline wouldn’t impact farming.
Hoagland has said the pipe is designed to handle Bromley Farms storm runoff but also correct other drainage problems in the area.
But Palizzi said they were led astray. For starters, she said, the line consists of not one pipe but four, each 48 inches in diameter. They would run the full width of the farm from east to west.
Gutierrez said the pipes will intersect one north-south running ditch permanently, preventing flow of water and therefore their ability to irrigate crops. If Palizzi doesn’t irrigate her acres of peas, beets, kale, cantaloupes and other vegetables, she said, it could put her water rights at risk.
The only way for Palizzi to continue farming is if Hoagland buries the pipes under at least 4.5 feet of dirt, the depth needed for them to safely run tractor implements to aerate the soil and allow their ditchwater to continue to flow, she added.
But she said a representative from the metropolitan district told Ostrander this week that they can only guarantee 3 feet of dirt. “And that isn’t adequate,” she said, “because our tractor equipment will destroy their pipes.”
“Bottom line: If eminent domain takes our land, they’re taking our livelihood,” Palizzi said.
“We aren’t finished farming yet,” she added. “We love farming. We love our community.”
The metro district’s defense
During a court hearing on May 13, Parkland attorneys argued the district needed eminent domain to move forward with the project as soon as possible.
They added Palizzi would be able to continue farming above the system and construction could happen in what they called the nongrowing season.
They said Parkland needed to hire a contractor to build the project and that they couldn’t wait any longer.
But the judge declined to give a ruling from the bench. Friday was her deadline.
Palizzi said she has spoken with two city council members, Chris Fiedler and Matt Johnston. Fiedler was not on the council when members voted unanimously to give the metro district eminent domain powers. She said Fiedler told her he can’t do anything to help her unless the council wants to do something as a whole, “but that his heart is with us on it and he hopes it will turn out that we can continue farming.” Johnston, who has been on council since 2018, is also on her side, she added.
Neither Brighton City Manager Michael Martinez nor Hoagland responded to The Colorado Sun’s requests for comment Thursday.
The Bromley Farms project could help with Brighton’s housing shortage. The plan for the corner – about 14 acres – includes 350 units of multifamily housing. But “nobody’s lining up there waiting for a house to be built,” Palizzi said.
On Wednesday, Gutierrez drove across the farm surveying some of the workers Palizzi employs to hand-pick the corn, yellow onions, carrots, snap peas and other vegetables that grow there.
“It’s our farm,” he said proudly, and drove back.