Among the schools closed recently by Colorado Springs School District 11 was the Buena Vista Elementary School. It’s name is Spanish for “beautiful view” and it was a unique facility.

    Instead of a traditional large building, Buena Vista was built with a main  building flanked by four cottages, all constructed of blond brick. 

    You can see it in this photo from the PTA Web site.

    The complex was created in 1911 on West Bijou Street, between 16th and 17th streets. The school district had paid $2,000 for the block in 1900, according to a history of the district written by Harriet Seibel in 1975.

    The cottage complex replaced an older building moved to the site in 1903. The main building cost $15,000 and each cottage cost $10,000. A mechanical building was built behind them.

    Eventually, a second floor was added to the central building and by 1975, additions were made to the cottages, turning them into U-shaped buildings. Instead of a five-building complex, Buena Vista was a three-building complex.

    The U-shaped cottages are visible below in the image from www.FlashEarth.com on either side of the main two-story building. The small mechanical building sits to the back. Also visible are additions to the west set of cottages - classrooms and a gymnasium. A temporary classroom structure sits at the rear of the playground.

     The school is being replaced by the West Center for Intergenerational Learning. It will occupy about 13,000-square-feet of the west section of the complex. The city will try to rent the remaining buildings.

     Since it’s creation in 1993, the West Center has been attached to West Middle School a few blocks away on 20th Street where it occupies about 7,400-square-feet. The city added a west wing of the middle school as a place to  offers a variety of community classes and events. The city paid about $12,000 a year in utility costs and shared a custodian with the school.

      The city is in discussions with various nonprofit agencies, including Pikes Peak Community Action Agency, about using some of extra the space at the old Buena Vista school. The PPCAA helped found the West Center.

      D-11 agreed to pay $225,000 for improvements and first-year utility costs at Buena Vista. Much of the money will be used to add air conditioning to the structure.

Here is a link to  a 12-page brochure about the West Center’s activities for the summer of 2009.

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WEST CENTER CREATES COMMUNITY is a post from: Side Streets

Remember Achilles the pit bull? I wrote about the 5-year-old dog in April. Here is a photo of Achilles taken by its owners, Danny and Susan Polston:

For seven months, Achilles sat in dog jail, confined at the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region at $10 a day awaiting trial that would determine if it was a dangerous animal.

Achilles was set free on May 21, released to his owners.

OK, free is overstating it a bit.

Achilles is not allowed to run with other dogs. Even inside a six-foot-tall wooden privacy fence. It must remain on leash under its owner’s control, or confined in an “escape proof” kennel — the kind with a roof and secured at the bottom so the dog can dig or climb out.

Why such precautions? Because the last time Achilles ran loose in the yard, he launched himself over two fences, about four-feet tall, and mauled Moonbear, a 12-year-old mixed breed dog owned by next-door neighbors Michael and Diane Elmore. Moonbear is seen relaxing below in a photo submitted by the Elmores. 

Already, Achilles is causing heartburn on Nokomis Circle, an unincorporated neighborhood on Colorado Springs’ eastern edge.

The plea agreement called for Achilles to be on leash or in an escape-proof kennel whenever he is outside. But Diane Elmore said Achilles was running loose inside its fenced backyard the first night home.

Danny Polston denies it and calls it a “big misunderstanding” and warns Elmore to mind her own business.

Ouch. Sounds like the humans are doing as much barking as the dogs. 

Here is a link to my previous column on Achilles.

Any bets on how this one ends?

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ACHILLES IS FREE, sort of is a post from: Side Streets

In 2007, residents of the Woodmen Valley near Peregrine along the southern boundary of the Air Force Academy found themselves battling to preserve their neighborhood on two fronts.

Here’s a look at the valley from www.FlashEarth.com

First, a developer revealed plans to convert the old Woodmen-Roberts Elementary School,  since 1990 known as the Woodmen Center, not a strip mall with a liquor store, dry cleaner and coffee shop.

Then another developer asked the city to annex 40 acres of land and eight homes where he planned to build a subdivision with 80 homes.

 The project included a 5-acre parcel that for years was the home of  retired Congressman Joel Hefley.

Here’s a look at the project:

Neighbors formed the “Woodmen Valley Preservation Association” and opposed both projects. They insisted on so many restrictions on the Woodmen Center property that the developer dropped plans for a strip mall.

Today, a new owner is preparing to move in: Nursing and Therapy Services of Colorado.

The other project, to get Colorado Springs to annex the 40 acres including Hefley’s house and build an 80-home subdivision failed when activists discovered that several of the property owners signed away their right to subdivide years ago when they accepted city water.

Now, the old Hefley spread, with its house and 5.37 acres,  is on the market for $725,000. Here’s a look at it:

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NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVISTS 2, Developers 0 is a post from: Side Streets

If you like to recycle, you are going to love FreeCycle, as in www.FreeCycle.org. It’s a cyber swat-meet, if you will.

Maybe you remember “swap meets.” They used to be held at drive-in movie theaters, where I grew up in Kansas City. Folks would show up, open their trunks or the backs of their station wagons and give stuff away. Or swap for somebody else’s junk. A radio station in K.C. also hosted audio swap meets every weekend.

Today, it’s more common to go to  flea markets and garage sales, where secondhand stuff is sold instead of given away or traded.

I’m really dating myself.

Anyway, FreeCycle is a network of nonprofit sites around the world. They all trace their roots to Tucson, Ariz., where a recycling group in 2003 wanted to create a way to keep perfectly good items from clogging the landfill.

Visit the Web site, type in “Colorado Springs” and it will direct you to site on the Yahoo Groups. The local site looks like this:

It’s a place to ask for stuff or advertise it. It’s free. And it seems the most important rule is that no guilt trips are allowed. In other words, no begging for stuff. FreeCycle is about reducing the volume of trash entering landfills, not charitable giving.

That said, it’s a great place for folks on a budget to pick up free stuff. Or to unload stuff you’ve outgrown or don’t want anymore but you hate to simply throw away.

Here’s what a typical page looks like:

As you can tell, you can get everything from a ferret kennel to tire chains to a broken TV on FreeCycle. It’s kind of like looking in my garage!

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FREECYCLE — the circle of giving is a post from: Side Streets

Welcome to Crockett Lane – a bizarre collection of houses, garages and barns converted to living space and jammed together along a dirt road amid big, beautiful trees in a low-lying area that was adjacent to Fountain Creek before Interstate 25 was built.

In the photo below is vew of Crockett Lane taken from the Vanguard School, a new charter academy built by the Cheyenne Mountain School District on a hill overlooking the neighborhood. The photo looks north.

Another look at Crockett Lane, below, shows the dirt street facing to the east. The Vanguard School is out of view to the right. 

The neighborhood was created by Lee Jeffers, a disgraced ex-investment broker — his career ended in 2000 when he pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud, paid a $28,000 fine. State and federal regulators accused him of using an investment strategy deemed too sophisticated and risky for some elderly clients to understand.

Jeffers bought the property in 1987 and subdivided it into 12 lots in two filings with the city planning department. A couple houses existed. He built one. Moved a couple in. Remodeled barn space and garages into living space. Soon he had 24 rental properties and a large horse barn along Crockett Lane.

Below is a look at the neighborhood from www.FlashEarth.com

Only problem, he didn’t get building permits for many of the houses and he piggy-backed utilities from existing houses. That made the houses illegal.

Here is a link to my August 2007 column  about Crockett Lane.

In the 2007 column, I exposed the illegal houses and the folks at the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department and Colorado Springs Utilities vowed to investigate and take action.

Not so much, as it turned out. In fact, several of the houses sold before Regional Building got around to slapping “Certificates of Non-Compliance” on them. That means the buyers didn’t know they could not be occupied.

Now the buyers are trying to get the houses up to code so they can be rented or sold. But they are being told to pay for Jeffers’ sins. 

Each house must have development permits purchased and building permits and inspections and water, sewer and power lines installed. There are zoning and setback variances to get.

Even worse, the owners are being told the houses sit in a floodplain for Fountain Creek, which is on the other side of Interstate 25. Doesn’t matter that the houses are surrounded by houses not considered in the floodplain.

Here’s a closer look at Crockett Lane.

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BUYER BEWARE applies to foreclosed houses is a post from: Side Streets

Eric Fredrickson lives in Manitou Springs but his three sons play soccer, baseball and football in Colorado Springs’ youth programs. He is concerned that the fields where his sons practice and play are going to burn up this summer without adequate irrigation.

Here’s a reminder how Ford Frick Park looked in 2002 in a photo by Jerilee Bennett of The Gazette:

                                                                             So Fredrickson is proposing an idea:

 Fredrickson wants every parent and every child should carry an extra bottle of water to each practice and game and dump the water on the field before they leave.

City officials aren’t sure a water bottle brigade will solve the problem, but it couldn’t hurt. Parks are hurting because of Colorado Springs’ budget crisis, which is forcing officials to slash its summer watering schedule for city parks.

In a typical summer, the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department would pour 24 inches of water on the city’s 869 acres of irrigated turf, according to Kurt Schroeder, the manager of the agency’s maintenance program.

Due to shortfalls in tax revenue, Schroeder said he can only give a full ration of water, fertilizer, seed and weed spray to 234 acres. The rest will only get about 11 inches of water and none weed, seed or fertilizer. He’d need another $1 million to treat all turf the same. Consider all that Schroeder manages:

• 7 regional parks 
• 8 community parks
• 136 neighborhood parks
• 5 sports complexes
• 105 miles of urban trails
• 160 miles of park trails
• 48 open space areas
• 2 public golf courses
• 2 public cemeteries

Add up those facilities and the total exceeds:

• 9,000 acres of parks
• 500 acres of trails
• 5,000 acres of open spaces

Already, philanthropists have stepped up to donate thousands to ensure the Julie Penrose Fountain in America the Beautiful Park will spray this summer. Here’s a photo from the city Web site.

                                        Lyda Hill also guaranteed the Uncle Wilber fountain in Acacia Park will operate, as seen in a Gazette file photo.

                  Fredrickson was inspired to help sports fields in city parks with his water bottle brigade.

Here is a look at his sons in action. Below, 5-year-old Porter Fredrickson kicks high at the Gossage Youth Sports Complex.

Below, 10-year-old Atticus dribbles.  

Here Darwin, 12, scores as the goalkeeper watches helplessly. 

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WATER BOTTLE BRIGADE is a post from: Side Streets

Size, when it comes to neighborhoods, doesn’t matter in Colorado Springs. At least not in conversations about protecting character and unique qualities of the places people live.

The City Council declared on Tuesday that small, unique areas within larger neighborhoods can be identified as their own little entities and are worthy of being protected from incompatible development projects.

Want to see it for yourself? Go to www.Springsgov.com and go to SpringsTV where you will find the council meeting waiting for viewing. Select “Item 12 – Horizon View” to fast forward to the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood’s appeal hearing.

                                    Or follow this link and when the media player pops up, under “View” drag down to “File Markers” and drop down to “ Item 12 - Horizon View.”

 It’s fascinating viewing for neighborhood enthusiasts.

Dave Munger, pictured left, president of the Council of Neighbors & Organizations, an umbrella group for all Springs neighborhoods, asked the simple question: What is a neighobrhood and who decides?

The answer may have surprised some.

Led by Vice Mayor Larry Small, left, the council gave a clear answer: Size doesn’t matter when it comes to protecting the character of neighborhoods.

Tiny pockets of homes, like the Rawles Open Space Neighborhood, are distinct from the larger neighborhoods that most would recognize. In this case, the Mesa Neighborhood Association.

The council’s declaration is significant because it shielded the Rawles group from a modern, five-house subdivision proposed on five acres in the area.

The developer, Dr. Kristine Hembre, left, told the council she considers the Rawles Open Space an “eyesore” that she intended to improve by building her houses.

Read more about it below in my April 26th post.

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SIZE DOESN’T MATTER after all is a post from: Side Streets