Michael Hancock is the first Denver mayor to take away rather than add to open space/park lands. Since 2011, the city has practiced clear-cutting in three parks, Hampden Heights No./Hentzell Park, Globeville Landing Park and City Park Golf Course, and has proposed the same for Park Hill Golf Course.

City Park and Park Hill Golf Courses are part of a proposed stormwater drainage system, the Platte to Park Hill, designed to protect development projects along I-70, including proposed Olympics facilities, though the city has denied the connection. Gov. Hickenlooper and Mayor Hancock appointed an Olympic Exploratory Committee in 2011, setting into motion plans for the I-70 expansion and drainage projects. Since December 2017 the city has cut down over 260 trees in Historic City Park Golf Course, and has begun excavation for an approximately 40 acre detention ditch.

Tom Paxton and the World Folk Music Association graciously granted permission for use of the performance of "Whose Garden Was This?" from the concert Tom Paxton Remembers John Denver with the Cellar Door Gang, 1998. Tom Paxton wrote the song in 1970 for the first Earth Day.