The 10 developments and projects on the fourth annual list represent bad planning, poor land use and disregard for the surrounding community's sentiments, said Ann Livingston, CoPIRG's land use attorney.

"Coloradans pay for sprawl in terms of a reduced quality of life and then again in taxpayer subsidies for sprawling developments," Livingston said.

CoPIRG held its news conference at Colorado Highways 93 and 72, where the much-planned and long-debated Northwest Parkway would run.

"More than almost any other single project included in the Sprawl of Shame, the final loop of the Northwest Parkway threatens to encourage additional sprawl," according to the report.

Arvada and other local governments have "openly disregarded" a recent study showing "that the $500 million project would not reduce traffic in the region nearly as cheaply or efficiently as simply improving the local, existing transportation infrastructure," according to the report.

Arvada Mayor Ken Fellman said the transportation study was shortsighted - looking only 20 years into the future - and that without a beltway, the road improvements would still result in nothing more than "gridlock."

Fellman said a planned version of the beltway that the city favors would not encourage sprawl because the road would run through, or skirt, open space.

"We have been buying open space and planning a beltway, and we are going to continue doing it," Fellman said.

Fellman said about 11,000 acres south of Rocky Flats, known as the Vauxmont development and Cimarron Park area, would be the only area developed in close proximity to the proposed Northwest Parkway.

The sprawl list was compiled by the Colorado Sprawl Action Center, a project of CoPIRG and the Public Interest Research Foundation. It includes developments or proposals in Aurora and Douglas County in the metro area and in Delta, La Plata, Larimer and Las Animas counties.

The list is critical of the El Paso County Planning Commission for changing zoning to allow a road through Black Forest Regional Park for access to a proposed housing development, Cathedral Pines.

The proposed Milim Road is tied up in court.

If the park road isn't used, traffic would flow through existing neighborhoods east and west of the park, said Ken Rowberg, El Paso County planning director.

"To some degree, you had neighborhoods pitted against neighborhoods," Rowberg said.

In Clear Creek County, a high school under construction in the Floyd Hill area raised CoPIRG's hackles.

Moving the school from Idaho Springs to its new site would force students and teachers to drive 7 miles east, according to the Sprawl of Shame report.

However, Clear Creek schools Superintendent Don Middleton defended the location, pointing out that voters approved the location in November 1999.