Bob Curtis, a resident of Timberview neighborhood east of Monument, has extended an open invitation to any of his neighbors interested in meeting with El Paso County Engineer Andre Brackin regarding flooding in the subdivision.

Curtis is going to give Brackin a tour of the neighborhood to show him the extent of the damage caused by inadequate drainage in the area.

The meeting is scheduled 2-4 p.m., on Wednesday, Feb. 4 at his home at 17847 Loverly Way.

Here is a look at the neighborhood from FlashEarth.com.

 For more photos, scroll down on my blog to an entry Jan. 19.

Lots of homeowners associations and condos try to save money by simply relying on volunteer boards of directors and maybe a part-time employee or two to manage their associations.

Depending on the size of the neighborhood or condo complex and the skills of the volunteer board members, it might not be a good idea to find a professional property manager. It can be overwhelming, dealing with covenant enforcement and collecting dues and taking complaints from cranky neighbors.

But all property management companies are not equal, as frequent readers of Side Streets knows. Some are abusive, will steal money and act unprofessionally.

The folks at Rockrimmon Condominium Association recently fired its staff of three and hired professional management for its 35-year-old complex at 6500 Delmonico Drive.

As a result, the comlex is saving thousands a year it had been paying staff and has been able to apply the money to improvements at the clubhouse and to buy siding for the entire complex.

Here’s a look at the condos:

Below is a view of the siding, old and new, with the shadow of a man doing installation. The board of the condo association was able to secure a loan to pay for residing the entire complex because it saved so much money when it hired a professional property management company.

Before hiring a company, the board made a list of goals it wanted to achieve by hiring a property management company and formed a list of questions for prospective managers. Here are some of the goals and questions:

Goals:

How much do you charge? Fees are commonly based on a percentage of the gross dues collected each month (typically 3%-10%), and may also include lease commissions as well as additional fees to cover repair and maintenance costs. Or they may charge a flat fee based on the number of units.

Are you a certified property manager? The National Association of Residential Property Managers certifies its members based on levels of education completed by each person or property management company. Follow the link to its Web site to see an explanation of each levels. 

The Community Associations Institute is another trade group — focused on community associations, not just apartment managers – and has a similar education program to certify its members.

CAI has a Southern Colorado chapter and it keeps a searchable on-line list of its members showing which property managers are certified. It’s a good place to start looking for a property manager.

Another great tool for screening property managers it the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado which also offers a list on its Web site where you can search by company name or type of business and view each and their grade. Some area property management companies score an “F” with the BBB.

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Soaring Eagles residents want Colorado Springs to think outside the box. Big Box Retail, that is.

Folks in the 600-home Soaring Eagles neighborhood in southeast Colorado Springs thought they had convinced the city to do just that in 2006 when a long, loud and emotional debate dissuaded Wal-Mart from building a Supercenter on 28 vacant acres.

To be fair, they also turned out en masse and made passionate, well-reasoned arguments about the impact of a 24-hour-a-day operation attracting 10,000 cars daily into their little neighborhood and the impact it would case in terms of trash, crime and noise from customers, delivery trucks and the like.

(They took a cue from other communities that have successfully fought intrusion by big box retailers. There are Web sites devoted to those efforts including http://walmartwatch.com)

At the time, city planners urged Wal-Mart to cut down the size of its planned building.

The neighborhood thought it had won the war when Wal-Mart dropped its plans in the face of such fierce opposition. But prime real estate never sits idle for long. And this 28 acres sits on the city’s hottest new retail corridor at the corner of Powers Boulevard and Hancock Expressway.

(Yes, Hancock Expressway intersects with Powers. It’s one of those “Only in Colorado Springs” street alignments. It’s a two-block, east-west segment of the expressway that doesn’t connect to the actual Hancock Expressway. Hello, traffic engineering!  But I digress.)

Here’s a look at the land from FlashEarth.com:

Anyway, it probably shouldn’t have surprised anyone last September when architects for the land owners approached the city and began talking about a new concept plan for the property.

No tenants have been identified and the plan has not been formally filed. But a lot of work has gone into designing a regional shopping center and neighbors are convinced they are staring at their future in the architect’s drawings.

Colorado Springs city planner Mike Schultz said the new plan includes significant concessions from the original plan developed for Wal-Mart.

Here is the original plan for a 207,000-square-foot Wal-Mart and associated gas station.

Below is the new plan being considered by the ownership.

Soaring Eagles residents are not planning a screaming contest to shout down the latest plan. Rather, they are doing what they did before: organizing and rallying neighbors to get involved and speak up.

Want to know why residents oppose the big box? Read an excellent, in-depth look at the issue written in December 2007 by The Gazette’s real estate guru Rich Laden.

 Laden

They’ve also hired their own architect to create alternative designs for the land to show the owners how it could be more appropriately developed in harmony with the residential neighborhood that surrounds it.

HOA president Corey Hepworth said Soaring Eagles wants to avoid joining the list of Springs neighborhoods suffering today because huge retailers came and went, abandoning their big box buildings to sit and rot for years and years.
“We don’t want an empty field sitting there where people ride their ATVs and throw their junk,” Hepworth said. “But why should the developer’s right to make money out-weigh the rights of 536 homeowners to protect their property values?”

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Bob Curtis said he has been trying since 2006 to get his Timberview Property Owners Association to help fix drainage problems in the neighborhood east of Monument.

Curtis and others in the neighborhood of about three-dozen homes wanted the POA to prod El Paso County to demand the developer install a drainage system.

Curtis lives on Loverly Way at the bottom of the hilly, wooded Timberview neighborhood. With every heavy rain, water cascades down through the trees, wiping out landscaping and undercutting the foundations of homes.

Here is a look at his home from the El Paso County Assessor’s Web site:

Here is the Timberview neighborhood as seen from www.FlashEarth.com:

After sending dozens of e-mails to the Timberview POA and its management company, as well as to county inspectors, Curtis turned to Side Streets. It took only a couple phone calls to reach Andre’ Brackin, county engineer, who quickly vowed to meet with the neighbors, tour the area and assess the damage.

Curtis said he has spent $20,000 to protect his home from water, digging a series of ditches, installing metal landscaping rails and using tons of rock, or rip rap, to stop erosion and channel water away.

Here is a look at the work he’s done:

Below are photos Curtis provided to illustrate his efforts. They oughta send him to New Orleans to help protect that city.

Take a look at what happens when it rains . . .

The effects of erosion are visible throughout Timberview. Here’s an example:

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Folks in Fountain seem to agree that the entrances to town need to be spruced up. Who wants to look at junk yards and abandoned buildings and the like?

What’s the quickest way to spur redevelopment? Certify the area blighted and create an urban renewal agency with the power to condemn property so that large new projects can proceed.

That’s what happened. Leaders created the Fountain Urban Renewal Authority and it started eyeing victims, I mean, opportunities for redevelopment. Here’s a map of the urban renewal area.

Unfortunately for Patty and James Graf, the authority’s first project involves 17 acres surrounding their Fountain Creek Veterinary Clinic.

 They were not pleased when they learned the city wanted to create access through their land and the state wanted a 15-foot strip of their frontage on U.S. Highway 85-87 to allow widening and installation of a median, which will make it more difficult to come and go from the clinic.

Patty Graf is so upset at the way the family was treated that she is writing letters and campaigning to oust Fountain’s elected officials. She’s even dissuading other businesses from coming to Fountain.

Doesn’t matter the project Fountain is promoting is a proposal by Place Properties of Atlanta  to spend $30 million to build Independence Place  _ 276 units, primarily for soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Carson.

 Here’s an artist rendering of the complex as proposed by Place:

 It doesn’t matter the clinic will get potentially hundreds of new clients. Or that it will get city water service because utilities will be extended to the area to accomodate the complex. The Grafs don’t like being forced to sell or what they consider as bully tactics.

 Place is one of the largest construction companies in the nation and specializes in private student housing. But recently it has begun building unique military housing. Independence Place will rent bedrooms, not apartments as people commonly think of them. That way, a soldier isn’t left in a financial bind when a roommate deploys or leaves for any reason.

  Most utilities are included in the rent, so there are no steep utility deposits. At the Fort Benning Independence Place project, rents range from $558 per bedroom in a four-bedroom unit up to $875 for a one-bedroom unit.

 Each bedroom has its own bathroom, and the units come furnished. The developments are gated and feature a clubhouse, fitness center, computer rooms, game rooms and swimming pools. Like most apartment complexes, it will have a clubhouse, pool, volleyball court, and basketball court.

 Place already has built ”Independence Place” complexes for Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Ga., Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas.

  Place Properties has developed more than $525 million of student and military housing properties since 1996 and manages more than 17,000 beds, according to Commercial Property News.

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Turns out some people took seriously Barack Obama’s call for change and public service at the grassroots level.

The campaign theme will turn into action beginning the weekend leading up to the national holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, Jan. 19, and carrying through on Tuesday, Jan. 20, the day Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States.

More than a dozen opportunities to contribute to change, via public service, are scheduled in Colorado Springs. Visit http://www.mlkday.gov/ to learn about events nationwide.

Another good Web site is one focused on Obama’s inauguration at http://www.pic2009.org/

  For all the details and contact information on the Colorado Springs-area events, go to http://usaservice.org and click on “Find and Event”

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At first blush, the topic of truck routes through Colorado Springs sounded like a SNORE.

A closer look revealed just how important this map really is to neighborhoods.

How would you like to live on Pikes Peak Avenue and have to back out of the driveway of your modest bungalow into the path of an 18-wheel semi barreling down the street?

Here’s a look at the existing truck map for Colorado Springs:

For a better look, go to SpringsGov.com and work your way to the Transportation Planning site and click on the Citizens Transportation Advisory Board then to the TISC Truck Route Review. Or follow this link to the map.

Folks at the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus are upset about big trucks pounding up and down Austin Bluffs Parkway between Nevada Avenue and Union Boulevard. But map proponents say it only makes sense to fill in the gap in the east-west grid.

Here is a look from www.FlashEarth.com at the section of Austin Bluffs that would become a truck route:

The parkway is too steep with 6 percent grades on the west, too winding for trucks and with its nearby schools it would be too dangerous, critics say.

Members of the map-making committee say the missing link is necessary, especially now that an overpass has been built at Union and Austin Bluffs and the roadway elevated and straightened a bit.

Moreover, map-makers say their proposal would create a logical grid of truck routes, eliminating several that are too close together and moving others away from residential areas.

Here are some of the biggest changes the new map would make:

It would remove truck routes from:

-8th Street

-21st Street

-Lake Avenue

-Cheyenne Boulevard

-Circle Drive from Constitution Avenue to Fountain Boulevard

- Galley Road from Circle to Powers Boulevard

- Pikes Peak Avenue from Union Boulevard to Printers Parkway

- Airport Road from Circle to Powers

- Templeton Gap from Austin Bluffs to Powers

- Space Village Avenue east from Platte to 94

- Cheyenne Meadows Road

- Drennan Road, once Milton Proby Parkway is completed

- Astrozon Boulevard, when Proby is completed

- Austin Bluffs from Barnes Road north to Powers

A public hearing is scheduled at 6 p.m.,  Jan. 6 in the Carnegie Room of the Penrose Library downtown to debate the map.

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