Make 100% of Hughes a City Natural Area!
Because once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
1.ZONE ✅ 2.ACQUIRE✅
3.PROTECT
The most unifying, inclusive, protective, and funded use for Hughes is as a designated City Natural Area. A Hughes Natural Area would serve the community as a LOW-IMPACT multiuse designation (low-impact recreation while conserving diminishing wildlife habitat and migration routes).
1.ZONE ✅ 2.ACQUIRE✅ 3.PROTECT
“Voters’ Voices” from the podcast “Fort Collins Through Another Lens”
Listen to voters’ voices in response to the question, “Why did you sign the petition to protect & preserve Hughes as a Natural Area?” Recorded over Memorial Day Weekend.
🌲🌲🌲 Update: The Hughes Natural Area petition would simply allow voters to have a voice on the final step in the community's long-held vision to preserve & protect Hughes for ALL members of our community, and for our local wildlife that are increasingly encroached upon.
This is true Democracy in action, and it is why we are seeing high-impact “multiuse” (bike park) proponents desperately attempt to sow discord and vitriol on social media channels with a targeted digital smear campaign against us. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, the civic assembly’s recommendation to Council will carve up Hughes and dole it out to many factions who see an opportunity to exploit the Hughes land in a HIGH-impact “multiuse” (fragmented), consumptive manner for their own niche interests, not the larger community’s best interests.
71% of City Natural Areas acres exists outside of the Fort Collins City limits and generally require a car to visit. We already have dedicated tax dollars for land acquisition and restoration. Let’s make Hughes a new City Natural Area close to where our residents and taxpayers live, work, and play, and where our wildlife increasingly needs unfragmented habitat in the City.
Voters have successfully ZONED and ACQUIRED the Hughes land for publicly-owned open space. If you think voters should also have a say at the ballot box on the third and final step, the PROTECTION of Hughes as a Natural Area, no matter your stance on the issue, please sign the petition. Time is short. Thank you. 🌲🌲🌲
Where to Sign the Petition
1.ZONE ✅ 2.ACQUIRE✅ 3.PROTECT
WHERE TO SIGN the Hughes Natural Area Petition! 6/6 to 6/8/2025 is the FINAL WEEKEND TO SIGN. 📃
The Natural Areas Director’s statement on the Department’s available revenue for land conservation ($5 million) appears to be in direct contradiction with the NADs own annual funding statements. For instance, in 2022, over $16.5 million in revenue was generated for the NAD from dedicated City and County sales taxes and earnings on investments, and more than half of that went to land acquisition. In 2023, that figure was nearly $19.6 million. The Natural Areas Program is more than sufficiently solvent with over $23 million in the bank as of the City’s 12/31/2023 audit report (pages 125 and 136). More at this link.
A Hughes Natural Area is the ONLY proposed use at Hughes that is already funded. Hughes was funded in the acquisition from CSU, and there is a dedicated Natural Areas sales tax that has been in existence over 30 years that is used for acquiring and protecting land, a dedicated sales tax which Fort Collins taxpayers will likely be asked to re-approve in perpetuity in November of 2025. A Hughes Natural Area is also the most unifying, inclusive, protective (and funded) use for preserving Hughes Open Space.
~71% of the Acreage Protected by the Fort Collins Natural Areas Program Exists Outside of City Limits. How Would Hughes help?
Hughes would conserve an additional 164 acres of taxpayer-funded City Natural Areas within city limits where residents actually live, work, and play. Let’s prioritize land conservation within the City, not just outside of the City.
According to this map, ~71% of City Fort Collins Natural Areas acres exist outside of the Fort Collins city limits and generally require a car to visit. Only 29% of Natural Areas conserved acres exist within city limits near where Fort Collins residents and taxpayers live, work, and play.
The purchase of Hughes is already funded. Hughes would add a new 164-acre parcel to the Natural Areas portfolio that is actually within the city limits, not many miles away. Hughes is easy to access for all members of our community, and Hughes would serve as a contiguous buffer with existing Foothills Natural Areas that would relieve pressure on Maxwell and Pineridge, two natural areas that are impacted daily with ever-increasing visitation rates.
Land within the city will never be as affordable or available as it is today.
Setting the Record Straight on Natural Areas Funding
You may have heard a misleading claim about Hughes funding. Let's separate fact from fiction.
This post is in response to the interview that aired on May 13, 2025 with Natural Areas Director, Katie Donahue, in which the claim was made that Natural Area Department’s (NAD) acquisition budget is $5 million annually, and the eventual transfer of Hughes to the Natural Areas portfolio would prohibit other acquisitions for 3 years. Notably, the City requiring the NAD to reimburse costs to the General Fund is highly unlikely once Hughes is fully paid off via a favorable low-interest loan in 10 years.
Here are some facts:
In 2022, over $16.5 million in revenue was generated for the NAD from dedicated City and County sales taxes and earnings on investments.
In 2023, that figure was nearly $19.6 million.
The Natural Areas Program is more than sufficiently solvent with over $23 million in the bank as of the City’s 12/31/2023 audit report.
TAKE ACTION: HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP NOW!
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Where To Sign!
Please see our Daily Where to Sign page to find a petition signing location. This page is updated daily and frequently! Please check it often if you’re looking for a place to sign the petition.
If you have challenges with mobility or otherwise can’t come to us, a volunteer will happily bring the petition to you. Please contact us here.
Thank you! -
IMPORTANT: Help Us Gather Signatures!
We Can’t Do This Without YOU!
Please complete our Volunteer sign-up form to volunteer with our Grassroots Movement. We need signature collectors urgently, and we will train you and provide everything you need! We simply can’t do this without you. Join us to protect and preserve Hughes as a 100% City Natural Area! Thank you! -
Print & Distribute Flyers to Spread the Word
Spread the word to your neck of the woods by printing and and distributing flyers!
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Make a Donation!
Please donate to help us conserve Hughes for our community, future generations, and our wildlife that inhabit the site.
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Listen to the Podcast
In this Hughes episode, a community organizer discusses some of the questions & concerns around the experimental Civic Assembly process with podcast host, Trish Babbitt.
Also discussed are the high-intensity uses that two monied special interest groups have been pushing for, behind the scenes, to try to get a piece of the delicate Hughes ecosystem for themselves.
OTHER WAYS TO HELP
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Comment on the Bike Park Feasibility Study
The City of Fort Collins has funded and is currently conducting a feasibility study for yet another Bike Park in the City. It’s no coincidence that this study is occurring during the latest Civic Assembly outreach on Hughes, as the bike park lobby has made crystal clear.
Fill out the comment card and tell the City that Hughes Open Space is the last place that a 60-80 acre recreation-tourism destination BMX-like bike park should be built. Make YOUR voice heard. -
Contact City Council or Speak at a Council Meeting
Tell City Council that a recreation-tourism Bike Park and an Eco-tourism "Nature Campus" with animal enclosure exhibits, buildings and offices do NOT Belong at Hughes!
Remind Council that this sort of high-intensity development of Hughes violates the legislative intent of the conservation focused citizen-driven ballot measure! And we think a judge will say so too!
Sierra Club Poudre Canyon Group on a 100% Hughes Natural Area, March 2023:
“Fort Collins’ population is anticipated to grow by at least another 70,000+ people in the next 50 years. As our population grows and places greater usage demands on our City’s natural areas, one of the best ways to protect the tax-payer investments in our Natural Areas is to keep them undisturbed and to seize once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to extend our existing Natural Areas.”
