West side apartment project approved by Colorado Springs City Council after long meeting Tuesday

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Why did some City Council members vote for and against the proposal to build 420 apartment units in an existing office park at the intersection of 30th Street and Garden of the Gods Road?

Each council member explained his or her vote just before voting on the matter Tuesday night.

"I'm not opposed to redeveloping this land at all," said Nancy Henjum, a new member who joined the council this spring. "I think we need to take a pause. I don't feel like we're ready to make this step."

Another councilwoman, Yolanda Avila, said that opposition to the plan from the nearby Mountain Shadows neighborhood continues a disappointing trend.

"We do have this resistance to apartment buildings and affordable housing projects," she said. "I don't think that's a reason to not vote for this project. I also don't think there'd be this opposition if we were talking about single-family homes. But I'm going to tell you, I'm struggling (with this)."

Avila voted for the plan and Henjum voted against it, but Councilman Wayne Williams cast one of the five majority votes.

"A number of issues raised by the opponents are not persuasive to me, because the impacts are actually less than the current zoning," he said.

Bill Wysong, president of the Mountain Shadows Neighborhood Association, responded to Avila's remarks about a perceived apartment bias.

"There may be some bias but I can't speak for everyone," he said. "There's nothing against apartments themselves. It's just the fact of what apartments are. In order to make them profitable, they're usually not pleasant to look at, they're tall and you have a lot of people in a small space."

Wysong said he's still concerned about an unresolved matter -- hillside overlay, or the possibility of apartments being built on the surrounding foothills and obscuring the natural scenic views.

"Are they going to be able to build the apartments that, truly, they have put in their concept plan?" he asked. "Because right now, I don't think they will. I believe the hillside is going to be obscured."

During Tuesday's council meeting, it was revealed that the city has no standard to determine whether someone's scenic view is being blocked.

Council members are hoping for better communication and cooperation between the project developers and neighbors before a final development plan is presented to the city Planning Commission for approval -- a step that may not happen until sometime next year.

(PREVIOUS STORY -- TUESDAY, MAY 25)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The first votes on a proposed major development at the intersection of 30th Street and Garden of the Gods Road kept the City Council in session until late Tuesday evening.

Just before 7:30 p.m., the council -- in three separate votes, each passing by a 5-4 margin -- approved a zoning change, master plan change and a concept change for the 2424 office park near Garden of the Gods.

The council started its meeting an hour early, at 9 a.m., to finish the rest of its agenda and clear its schedule to consider the plan to build 420 apartments, office buildings and other mixed-use development.

Late Tuesday morning and early that afternoon, the council heard 45-minute presentations from city staff supporting the plan and from the development team.

"(There's) an over-representation of single-family development within the Mountain Shadows community," said Katelynn Wintz, a senior planner for the city. "The project addresses this by proposing a mix of uses, including an under-represented housing type within the community to create more housing diversity."

Andrea Barlow, a member of the project's development and planning team, agreed.

"The Garden of the Gods corridor was originally intended hi-tech industries and large employers," she said. "The demand now is for more variety, more rental and more apartments. We've seen in the press only recently that rents are soaring in this community."

After a lunch break, leaders of the nearby Mountain Shadows Neighborhood Association made a presentation to the council.

The meeting ended after a public hearing with more than two dozen people scheduled to speak, followed by council discussion and votes.

The plan has already been approved by the city's Planning Commission, but neighbors have strongly opposed it -- mainly due to concerns about the risk of wildfire and the difficulty of evacuating, as they experienced in the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire.

"Unless you've been through it, you don't understand it," said Bill Wysong, association president, becoming emotional during his remarks to the council.

The development team largely disagrees with and downplays the concerns, which also include increased traffic congestion, blocking surrounding mountain views and impacting a herd of Bighorn sheep in the area.

Councilman Richard Skorman asked Fire Marshal Brett Lacey and Brett Waters -- the city's deputy chief of staff and former emergency management director -- if they had any enough concern about wildfire risk and evacuation protocols to oppose the project.

Both said no.

Barlow said that construction on the project won't begin for another 18-24 months because a development plan still must be eventually drawn up and approved by the planning commission.