2026 Annual Report

The City of Littleton is guided by the five outcomes identified by the Envision Littleton long-term comprehensive plan. Check out the progress made toward those goals in 2025.

Vibrant Community with Rich Culture

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  City council adopted the Arts and Culture Strategic Plan, a guiding document to establish five-year goals for Littleton’s arts and culture scene developed with input from the city’s Arts and Culture Board, representatives from arts and culture organizations, and community members.
• The Littleton Museum continued to host unique and engaging exhibits, such as “Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed” and “Kate Ferretti: The Life of a Colorado Hat Maker.” The museum also highlighted the works of local artists with exhibitions including “Running West,” “Port de Banana,” and “No Longer, Not Yet.”
• “One Book One Littleton” returned at Bemis Public Library. Residents were invited to read Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers by Ralph Moody, an autobiographical account of Moody’s life near Littleton in the early 1900s. The library hosted several programs for all ages inspired by the book and its themes.
• The city once again hosted the Little Jam concert series and Audi Denver Littleton Twilight Criterium bike race, providing family fun for thousands. The city also partnered with community organizations to bring new or revived events to town, including the Downtown Littleton Block Party and the Longer Tables Littleton community dinner.
• The Safer Streets team helped foster culture change around biking and walking through programs including trail stations on Bike and Walk to School Day, Bike to Work Day, and other events.
• Public art will get a boost thanks to the “percent for public art” ordinance passed by city council, allocating 1% of funding from city-led capital improvement projects toward public art either as part of the project or a payment into a citywide art fund.

Sustainable Community with Natural Beauty 

• The first phase of redevelopment at Reynolds Landing along the Mary Carter Greenway broke ground. The goal of the project is to provide a place to gather, play, and explore the waters of the South Platte River. Construction is anticipated to continue through Spring 2027.
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  City council adopted the Root & Renew Vision Plan, providing an outline for the future of the city’s parks, open spaces, and trails. The plan is based on two rounds of community engagement conducted in 2023 and 2024.
• Littleton, Englewood, and Sheridan drew a Mayors’ Climate Protection Award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors for the Sustainable Business Partnership, a program providing technical assistance, educational outreach, and state-wide recognition opportunities for business and organizations looking to increase their environmental sustainability.
• South Platte Renew, the region’s wastewater treatment plant, fully recovered the $7.8 million startup costs of the Renewable Natural Gas system installed in 2019, which Littleton and Englewood both paid into. It is now generating positive revenue that will help offset sewer treatment rates, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 3,700 metric tons per year.
• Littleton completed its first comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory, a major milestone identified in the 2024 Environmental Stewardship Action Plan. The inventory establishes a baseline for emissions across both the community and municipal operations, and will help Littleton set climate goals and guide strategies for emissions reduction, resilience, and adaptation.
• Littleton joined partners in Centennial, Englewood, and Sheridan to adopt the South Metro Waste Diversion Plan, a first-of-its-kind analysis of how waste is handled in the region that spells out long-term goals and strategies for more cost-effective recycling, compositing, and waste collection.

Robust and Resilient Economy 

• South Metro Housing Options, the city’s housing authority, broke ground on Montview Flats, a 50-unit affordable apartment complex on Rapp Street. The city provided $900,000 from Inclusionary Housing Ordinance funds to help make housing accessible to people at all income levels.
• Littleton joined its partners in the Tri-Cities Homelessness Initiative to celebrate the opening of the Bridge House Ready to Work program and Navigation Center in Englewood. The Ready to Work program offers long-term support and job training for people experiencing homelessness, while the center offers services such as housing assistance, medical care, counseling, meals, and more.
• Littleton was named Colorado’s Medium-Sized City of the Year by the Economic Development Council of Colorado, in recognition of recent major strides in economic development.
• City officials completed entitlement and permitting for the Mineral Place retail and residential communities that will provide new shopping, dining, and housing opportunities as well as revenue to support basic city services.

Safe Community

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  Eight lane-miles of roadway were repaired in 2025 as part of the Pavement Management Program. Crews protected Littleton’s streets through methods including chip sealing, patching, slurry sealing, and mill and overlay. Cracks and potholes are filled on a continuous basis by the city’s streets team. Dozens more lane-miles are slated for repairs in 2026 and 2027.
• The Littleton Police Department implemented the Blue Envelope Program, designed to improve communication and understanding between law enforcement and those with autism spectrum disorder or other communication differences.
• Littleton’s Safer Streets team is working on updates to traffic calming pilot projects, and adding more installations guided by lessons learned from the first round. The projects use a variety of materials and methods to test the effectiveness of pedestrian and bicyclist safety measures.
• The Safer Streets team installed Littleton’s first protected bike lanes, adding physical barriers between riders and traffic — a step up from “buffered” bike lanes which use paint striping.
• Euclid Avenue received Littleton’s first-ever stretch of “complete street” design. Roadway upgrades include a 12-foot-wide shared-use path along the north side of the corridor, widened sidewalks along the south side, raised pedestrian crossings, curb extensions at intersections, and other traffic-calming elements.
• Youngsters in Littleton have a new place to learn the way of the road at the Safer Streets Practice Park at the East Community Center. Laid out across an expanse of asphalt, the Practice Park is a network of miniature streets complete with traffic lanes, roundabouts, crosswalks, and bike lanes. 

High-Quality Governance

• The new “Cone Zone” page on the city’s website provides residents with the latest news on traffic impacts, detours, and construction projects throughout the city. Check it out at LittletonCO.gov/ConeZone.
• Littleton’s engineers made the most of a tricky situation when they discovered an aging metal culvert beneath Broadway needed to be replaced, using the opportunity to add a pedestrian underpass connecting east and west segments of the Lee Gulch Trail that had been sought since the 1970s. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2026.

Littleton convened its first Charter Review Committee (CRC) in 11 years. The city charter calls for city council to periodically convene a CRC to perform a comprehensive review of all charter sections and make recommendations to council for amendments and deletions. The CRC is scheduled to make its final recommendations to city council in early 2026.