There are just a few days left to collect signatures to put a protected & preserved Hughes Natural Area on the ballot for voters to decide on. Volunteers are nearing the signature goal, and they need YOUR signature.

A successful 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 threatened as development pressures accelerate in our City.

Audio: Listen to voters discuss why they signed, and support, the petition to Make Hughes a Natural Area for ALL, recorded over Memorial Day Weekend, by DoTell Edu Productions.

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. This claim from the City employee does not pass the smell test for several reasons. Notably, the City forcing the NAD to recoup costs to the General Fund is highly unlikely once Hughes is fully paid via a favorable low-interest loan off in 10 years. Here are some more facts:

It is not too much to ask to protect and preserve Hughes as a Natural Area.

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 30 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.

Hughes Open Space is already funded, and in fact, it is already 1/3 paid off thanks to a $4 million down payment, shared by the City’s General Fund and the Natural Areas department. The remaining $8.5 million is in a favorable, low-interest loan that spans 10 years, just like a low-interest mortgage, per City staff's own description of the loan. Don’t believe the disingenuous rhetoric from a small, vocal group afraid to put a Hughes Natural Area to a vote.

Many local governments around the world, including here in our very own Colorado, have reclaimed and repurposed permanently closed landfills into popular bike parks and recreation hubs.

When people who want to develop Hughes for a massive bike park or visitor center/campus tell you that Hughes isn't "pristine" and shouldn't be conserved as a natural area, remind them that many of our water storage bodies along the Poudre, and our precious natural areas, were LITERAL dumps and strip mines for gravel and sand, before being extensively RESTORED to the critical ecosystems and low-impact recreation (fishing, walking and wildlife watching) they are now.

Hello, we want to make you aware of another citizen petition that began on the heels of our own petition, so that we can hopefully get ahead of any confusion. We urge you to know the difference and not accidentally conflate these different petition efforts.

Posted by a user on NextDoor, 5/7/2025, K. Harper:
"Many local Bike Park advocates are spreading misinformation about the sledding hill and disc golf course if Hughes becomes a natural area. As you can see from the attached city code, sec. 23-193(b), both activities are allowed at the discretion of the natural areas department.

Read the City’s own “Foothills Management Plan - Update 2019” regarding the importance of reducing habitat fragmentation to create interconnectivity between patches of habitat for the conservation of our local foothills fauna and flora.

A protected City Natural Area is the most unifying, inclusive, and protective use for the Old Hughes Stadium land, a place that people of ALL abilities, ages, and backgrounds can enjoy.

Let’s finish what we started for the benefit of ALL members of the Fort Collins community and the local wildlife that are returning to the land. Let’s make Hughes a protected City Natural Area. Because once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

It is crystal clear that more residents want Natural Areas/wildlife habitat and soft surface and paved trails than want another bike park in Fort Collins. And that those outdoor recreational uses are a priority investment for the City. No amount of cherry-picking of data will change that.

There has been a lot of disinformation-style messaging coming from lobbying groups trying to twist the legislative intent of the Hughes ballot measure.

So, here’s the gist of our position about Hughes and the legislative intent of the conservation-focused citizen initiative, so others can’t continue to flood public venues and social media with misinformation.

There has been a lot of focus on the “land uses” in the Ordinance langue for Hughes Open Space. Equally important are the WHEREAS statements in the Ordinance, though these important clauses are receiving little to no attention.

Make sure when reading the Ordinance language, you also focus on the WHEREAS statements.

While the amount of content skewed toward the vocal bike park lobby, it was pretty clear from this CBS news story (below) that the bike park lobby is stretching the legislative intent of the word "recreation" for their own high-impact large-scale bike park that would only serve a few in our community, and would negatively impact Hughes and the sensitive ecotone along the adjacent protected areas.

If you haven’t heard the Hughes episode of Fort Collins Through Another Lens, it’s a must-listen!

A PATHS organizer discusses some of the many questions and concerns around the experimental Civic Assembly process with podcast host, Trish Babbitt.

Hello Friends and Neighbors,
There is a lot going on with Hughes Open Space these days, and it’s not good. We’ve been quietly watching the shenanigans around Hughes, particularly with regard to the City’s “Future of Hughes” tactics. Apparently, City leaders forgot that voters decided to conserve Hughes as open space in a landslide in April of 2021 (~69% of voters said YES!).