Your weekly field guide to Littleton, Ken Caryl, and the SW Denver foothills

Happy Friday. It's going to be 90 today and 92 on Sunday, the kind of weekend that makes a lawn look thirsty, so here's the timing to know: three more weeks, and then the sprinklers go off for the year. Denver Water's board made that call two weeks ago and it reaches every water bill in 80127, which is the lead this week. Also inside: the library's longtime director retired, Restaurant Week starts today, and the City of Littleton is about to vote on a sewer increase. Water the grass this weekend. It's on the clock.

Get your sprinkler system ready for winter.

Cooler weather is just around the corner, and now is the time to protect your sprinkler system before the first hard freeze.

Hogback Post special: sprinkler winterization, $89.99.

Up to 6 zones. Schedule by October 1. Crawlspace-access shutoffs are an additional $15.

Open Space Solutions LLC is a locally owned and operated business serving Ken Caryl, Morrison and the southwest foothills. Owner Richard Rominger personally handles your sprinkler winterization, making sure your system is properly prepared for Colorado's winter weather. Open Space Solutions also provides sprinkler repairs, spring start-ups, lawn care and grounds maintenance.

Call Richard at 720-775-5921 or visit openspacesolutionsco.com. Read the Google reviews. Mention the Hogback Post when scheduling.

Lawn watering ends October 1, and this time it's a rule, not a suggestion. On August 26 Denver Water's board amended its drought resolution to prohibit lawn watering as of October 1. Sprinkler systems get shut down, and the ban holds until the board says watering can resume, which means the systems stay off into spring 2027 unless that word comes. The two-day watering schedule you've been on since March runs through September 30, then stops.

The part that surprised me is how far it reaches. The water districts serving 80127 all buy from Denver Water. The City of Littleton, Ken-Caryl Ranch, Platte Canyon, Southwest Metropolitan, Willowbrook, Bow Mar, and Valley are all on its distributor list, so the rule follows the water to your tap. Ken-Caryl Ranch's district posted the notice the next day, and Platte Canyon's September newsletter spells out the fine print, including the line that hand-watering grass is covered too. Trees, shrubs, and perennials can still be watered any day with a hose and shutoff nozzle or a drip line, just not a sprinkler head. Annuals and vegetables by hand, any day. Parks and school fields need an approved variance, and new sod is off the table without one.

Why now: the water that ran into Denver Water's reservoirs between April and July came in at 22 percent of normal, the lowest in the 110 years it's kept records. The system sat at 70 percent full on Tuesday against a 93 percent average for this week, and the utility projects storage could fall to 60 percent before next year's runoff. That's the fall scoreboard I promised in August, and it's worse than the August number. Platte Canyon's newsletter puts teeth on it too: repeat violators can face fines, a flow restrictor on the line, or, in the worst case, a shutoff. So water your two days through the 30th, and start thinking about what a brown lawn means with your HOA. That fight is coming to a mailbox near you.

The Deer Creek library just changed hands at the top, and the design is nearly done. Jefferson County Public Library's executive director, Donna Walker, retired last Saturday after 14 years, and the library says a nationwide search for her successor is underway. That same week, the library's project team sent an update on the future Deer Creek branch: it's reviewing the final construction documents, the last step of design before permitting. The project page still lists the phase as Design, and the library's own timeline has construction running through 2027 and doors opening in 2028, an answer I've now given to four separate readers who wrote in to ask.

A member of the library's advisory council relays two dates from its September 1 meeting that the library hasn't posted yet: the interior design reveal moves to the trustees' November 19 meeting, and most of the interim programming at 11100 Bradford, the Saturday bookmobile stop included, wraps in December. The art call for the new building is still open, marker drawings due September 27, drop-off at Columbine Library on West Bowles.

Restaurant Week starts today. The third annual Littleton Restaurant Week runs through Sunday the 20th, with more than two dozen restaurants and bars posting food and drink specials for the ten days. It's a downtown and Aspen Grove list, Cherry Cricket, Carboy, Cencalli, Kate's Wine Bar, Romano's, the Melting Pot and ViewHouse among them, with the specials posted restaurant by restaurant on the Littleton Business Chamber's site. Restaurants topped the reader survey in August, so consider this your excuse.

Saturday is stacked. Nevada Street's farmers market, 8 to 1, runs through the 26th. The Littleton Artisan Fair takes over two parking lots at Arapahoe Community College on South Santa Fe, 10 to 3, free. The G-scale garden railroad at Hudson Gardens is free 9 to noon, with an encore Tuesday. The Littleton GO crew meets at Bega Park, the pocket park at the east end of downtown, at 1:45 for the Gible Community Day walk. And at dusk, TrailMark's Movie in the Park rolls at Hogback Hill Park on West Trailmark Parkway. Bring blankets and chairs. Everyone's welcome, and the neighborhood voted on the title, so you'll find out when the projector does.

Tuesday: Family Fun Night at the Deer Creek library site, 6 to 7, fall theme. Registration required, and it was down to 36 spots midweek.

Wednesday: the Village Cooperative's next information seminar on the old golf-course project is 1 PM, Hampton Inn, Shaffer Parkway. And the City of Littleton's last Meet Greet & Eat of the year is 4 to 6 at Charley Emley Park on West Briarwood, council and staff included, with a booth on the sewer rate study below.

All week: the library's pumpkin-carving photo contest takes submissions Monday the 14th through the 21st, votes through October 4, and the top five carvers get a four-pack to Disney on Ice.

Next-weekend flags: Chatfield Farms' corn maze opens Friday the 18th, and the final Wine Walk of the year is Friday the 25th, 4:30 to 7:30, check-in at Denver Beer Co on West Main, $30 in advance.

Steady week, hot week. Stage 1 fire restrictions still stand in unincorporated Jeffco, and the open-space parks and Chatfield stay stricter than that as always. Upper Plymouth Creek in Deer Creek Canyon still closes Monday through Thursday, 8 to 4:30, so the full Black Bear loop is a weekend ride. Two road notes for getting to the trailhead: the county says the new mast-arm signals at Kipling and Progress, and at Kipling and Alamo, should be finished by the end of the month, and CDOT's C-470 resurfacing between Ken Caryl and Wadsworth keeps running overnight, Sunday through Thursday, 8 PM to 6 AM, into the fall. With 90 today and 92 on Sunday, be on the trail before the sun clears the Hogback.

The 25 mph vote is still a mystery, and I told you it wouldn't be. Last week I said I'd have the result of the City of Littleton's September 1 hearing on its citywide 25 mph ordinance. As of Wednesday the city still hasn't posted it: the minutes aren't finalized, the council's records system lists the outcome as not available, and nothing has gone out since first reading passed August 18. While we wait, the reminder that matters: the ordinance would only change streets inside Littleton city limits that have no posted limit. If you're in unincorporated Jeffco, which is most of this list, it doesn't touch your street.

Littleton is about to vote on your sewer bill, if the city bills you for sewer. The City of Littleton's sewer and stormwater rate study goes to council October 6, and the proposal adds about $12 a month for a typical single-family customer inside the city, with stormwater rates rising for everyone on the system, starting in early 2027 if council adopts it with the budget. The city is also polling customers on switching from one annual bill to monthly, open through October 5 on the Let's Talk Littleton site. Who this reaches: homes inside city limits, plus Platte Canyon district customers whose sewer connects to Littleton's system. The reason is under the streets: the city puts its ten-year sewer and stormwater need at more than $328 million.

Leawood's new water mains are three-quarters in. Platte Canyon Water and Sanitation District's contractor has finished the pipe on South Marshall, West Burgundy, and South Newland, is working Nixon Court now, and finishes on Otis Court, with final milling and paving expected within the month. A reader on one of those streets says the door notices came with a street map, the crews kept driveways open, and the whole thing has run the way the notice said it would. Not a complaint, for once.

One more for November: the Front Range Passenger Rail tax is now certified as Ballot Issue 7A, a 0.333 percent sales and use tax across the rail district. The rest of the county ballot gets set later this month.

Four straight weeks up, and the top of the shelf is getting expensive. There are 198 homes on the market in 80127, up from 190 a month ago. What's new is the ceiling: a 5,900-square-foot listing on Lazy Dog Lane just came on at $3,475,000, and a 7,200-square-foot house on Red Fox Lane in Ken Caryl's Valley is asking $2,400,000. Meanwhile the Plains keep closing like it's June. A five-bedroom on West Dumbarton Drive sold last Friday for $925,000, its full asking price, after 20 days. The slow end is slow, though: a two-bedroom on West Maplewood Drive needed 304 days to close at $427,835, under its last list price. And if you've wondered what a brand-new house up here costs, Toll Brothers' own site puts its remaining Ken-Caryl Ranch homes at $806,995 and up.

Summer isn't done. Today hits 90 and sunny, Saturday cools to 84 with a slight chance of an afternoon storm, and Sunday is right back up to 92 with another late-day storm chance. Nights land in the upper 50s and low 60s, so the mornings are the good part. Monday holds near 87, and then Tuesday turns: 75 with showers and thunderstorms likely. No alerts, no smoke, and the ozone season is over. Do the yard early, then go eat something on somebody's Restaurant Week special.

Fourth reader, same question: what's going into the old Walgreens at Simms and Ken Caryl? The answer hasn't moved since July. The county issued a permit July 1 to convert it to a medical office, the building sold in June to two local LLCs, and which practice is moving in is the one thing nobody has said. If you see a name on the door before I do, hit reply. That's how half of this newsletter gets written.

That's the week from the foothills. Water on your days, eat somewhere new before the 20th, and when the sprinkler rule hits home, tell me how your HOA is handling it. I want the neighborhood, not your name.

Joey

Subscribe | Forward to a neighbor | Advertise with us