Colorado § 31-25-216 - Cities control park grounds outside limits.

§ 31-25-216. Cities control park grounds outside limits.

(1) In all cases in which any city, including any city or city and county organized under a special charter or created under the state constitution, has acquired lands outside its municipal limits for parks, open space and natural areas, parkways, boulevards, or roads, unless such acquired land is within the exterior boundaries of an Indian reservation, the city or city and county has full police power and jurisdiction and full municipal control and full power and authority in the management, control, improvement, and maintenance of and over any such lands so acquired whether or not the lands are open or closed to the public. Such a city or city and county has power and authority to provide by ordinance for the regulation and control of its lands so acquired, to prevent the commission of any acts which are or may be declared unlawful pursuant to the provisions of this part 2, and to prosecute and punish the violation of any ordinances in its municipal courts. Such city or city and county also has like power and jurisdiction to prevent pollution of the water in all reservoirs, streams, and pipes which may be included within any such parks, parkways, boulevards, or roads and over the stream or source from which such water is taken as far as ten miles above the point from which it is diverted. Such a city or city and county has like power and jurisdiction to regulate and prevent the erection, construction, and maintenance, within three hundred feet of any such park, open space or natural area, parkway, boulevard, or road outside its municipal limits, of any advertisement or of any billboard or other structure for advertisements. Such a city or city and county also has like power and jurisdiction over the use of any public roads, boulevards, or parkways within such parks or open space and natural areas and running over or through or between such lands and any public roads, boulevards, or parkways between any such park, open space and natural areas, or pleasure ground and its municipal boundaries and not included within the municipal limits of any incorporated city or town.

(2) In all cases where the right to take private property for public use without the owner's consent or to acquire lands for parks, parkways, boulevards, or roads outside the municipal limits of any such city or city and county is conferred by general laws or by the charter of any such city or city and county, it is lawful for any such city or city and county, or the department or branch thereof having authority in the premises, to take, by right of eminent domain, the property so sought to be taken and appropriated, such condemnation proceedings to be in accordance with the general laws of the state, insofar as the same are applicable, relating to any such city or city and county. The power and authority to so acquire lands for such purposes outside the municipal limits of any such city or city and county by gift, devise, purchase, or right of eminent domain is granted by this section, subject to the limitation imposed by section 31-25-201 (1).

Source: L. 75: Entire title R&RE, p. 1178, § 1, effective July 1. L. 83: (2) amended, p. 1265, § 3, effective July 1. L. 2025: (1) amended, (HB 25-1029), ch. 31, p. 167, § 1, effective March 26.

Editor's note: This section is similar to former § 31-25-219 as it existed prior to 1975.

Cross references: For the legislative declaration contained in the 1983 act amending subsection (2), see section 1 of chapter 367, Session Laws of Colorado 1983.