Side Streets ~ Neighborhood people and issues

Archive for March, 2012

EAGLE-EYE HOA CATCHES PAINT TRIM MISMATCH . . . 12 YEARS LATER!!

March 30th, 2012, 11:30 am by

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Carol Zier was shocked when she opened the letter from her Villages at Sand Creek Homeowners Association management company and discovered she was being ordered to paint the trim on her little shed.

And she was given just 30 days to get it done.

Carol was puzzled. The trim on her shed doesn’t need to be repainted. It’s not peeling or chipped.

That’s not the problem, according to the HOA.

Her trim is the wrong shade! It’s not an exact match to the trim on her home, the HOA declared.

And it doesn’t matter the trim has been the same color 12 years. Git ‘er done!

“I am just totally blown away by this,” Carol told me. “If you look at it, you wouldn’t even thing the shade is different.”

Carol assured me she wasn’t some covenant scofflaw who picked fights with the HOA. She’s always been a law-abiding HOA resident since she and her husband, Jerry, bought their home in 1999.

 Heck, she said, Jerry served on the HOA board before his death in 2003.

“I always pay my dues and I work hard to keep my home looking right,” Carol said. “And I never complain about things in the neighborhood they need to fix.”

So I drove out to her tidy home in the Villages at Sand Creek, a 141-acre, pie-shaped neighborhood off of Airport Road with about 500 homes developed in the late 1990s at the confluence of Sand Creek and its east fork. A city walking trail runs along the creeks with HOA-owned walkways providing access between a homes, including Carol’s.

In the evening sun, I studied the paint trim on Carol’s house and then on the shed.

I took some photos and brought them back to my editor, Dena, who studied them. She concluded the house trim was a “sandy” color and, by golly, the shed trim was more of a “putty.”

Her exact words: “The horror!”

She was being sarcastic. (She often gets that way when editing my columns.)

Anyway, I guess it’s true the colors don’t match.

But, really? Who has time to go around conducting CSI analyses of trim paint on hundreds of homes? If it’s so close that it escaped detection 12 years, why go after it now?

I called the HOA for an explanation.

Board member Bob Ricketts said the 12-year delay puzzled him, too.

And, I asked him, if the HOA can spot Carol’s trim mismatch, how did it miss the six-foot-tall fence along the HOA-owned walkway that runs next to her yard?

The wood on the fence is bare, ugly, rotting wood.

Even worse, Carol said a piece of the fence blew down last spring and the HOA declined to fix it saying it was her responsibility.

Ricketts said he was unaware of the fence issue and promised to look into it.

I’m guessing Carol will be forced to paint her shed trim long before that fence is ever painted. Wanna bet?

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BAKERY STUNNED WHEN YEARS OF NEIGHBORHOOD PEACE ENDS ABRUPTLY

March 23rd, 2012, 1:18 pm by

Larry Vasterling installs parking signs outside the bakery he bought in 1996 with his wife, Jane Vasterling. Recently, they asked the city for a technical change to their zoning and were stunned by neighbor reaction.

For 16 years, Jane and Larry Vasterling ran their Little London Cake Shoppe in a century-old storefront at 25th Street and Bott Avenue on the west side and everything was great.

They shared clam chowder and cake with next-door neighbor Larry Sipe and even hired his son at the bakery. Other neighbors were just as friendly.

Then the Vasterlings — both in their 60s — started thinking about slowing down and maybe taking a long trip. The bakery would need a manager.

That’s when they discovered they couldn’t let anyone else run their shop, with its three employees.

Worse, they would never be able to sell their bakery.

Seems a city hearing examiner had made a baffling error in 1996 when they bought the place and got a variance from the area’s residential zoning to allow their wholesale bakery.

Instead of attaching the variance to the property, as is normal, it was attached  to Jane and Larry. By name!

No one else could operate the bakery. Ever.

The second surprise came when they asked the city to fix it. Neighbors went nuts.

Larry Sipe told the Colorado Springs Planning Commission on March 15, 2012, the noise of the rooftop exhaust fan "bothers me greatly" even though city officials, noise experts and other neighbors can't hear it.

Folks they considered friends attacked them at a public meeting, accusing them of trying to sneak in a medical marijuana shop.

They unleashed anger over animals, especially bears, getting in the bakery trash and over customers parking on the street near the shop.

Jane was stunned.

The rooftop exhaust fan on Little London Cake Shoppe.

“No one ever told us,” Jane told the city Planning Commission last week. “They’ve all turned against me.”

Worst, they learned their friend Larry Sipe was bitter over an exhaust fan on their second-story roof.

The fan generally runs daytimes, Monday through Friday. Sipe insists he hears it day and night.

 “I never knew the fan drove him crazy,” Jane said. “No one else can hear it and he never mentioned it.”

Experts tried to measure the fan noise and it couldn’t be heard above the ambient noise of the neighborhood.

The white wall of Larry Sipe's house is visible on the left. The rooftop exhaust fan can be seen through the trees on the right.

I tried and failed to hear what Sipe told the commission: “creates all this noise and bothers me greatly.”

This is a link to my video. Hear for yourself.

Even so, the Vasterlings are working to appease Sipe and the others. They immediately got a bear-proof trash bin. They put up signs to deter parking down the street. And they are building a shield around the fan.

“All I’m asking for is a variance so I can pass the business on to a family member,”

The cake shop was built in 1900 as a grocery store with living quarters upstairs. It has always been a commercial property. Larry and Jane Vasterling bought it in 1996.

Jane told the commission before it voted unanimously to grant her a new variance.

“I don’t ever want to retire. I don’t ever want to leave that cake shop. It’s my passion. I don’t want to sell. But this has put fear in the neighbors.”

It’s so ugly one neighbor, a renter with a trash-strewn yard, is profanely accosting customers who dare park near his house. How rude.

A view of Larry Sipe's house on the left and the back of the Little London Cake Shoppe. It's trash bin was out awaiting pickup by the trash hauler. Typically, the bin is stored behind the building.

Have we become so uncivil we can’t talk over the fence anymore? We’d rather suffer in silence and confront in public than have a simple conversation? Yikes!

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SHOOKS RUN DIVIDED OVER KIOWA CREEK HOMES PROJECT

March 14th, 2012, 12:57 pm by

Beginning in 2003, East Kiowa Street in the Shooks Run neighborhood became a hot spot for development. Three large infill projects were proposed. None was ever built. But that may be changing soon.Blueprints for PAX Development's Kiowa Creek Homes show four buildings and two garages, entering off the alley on the south edge of the property.

Blueprints for PAX Development's Kiowa Creek Homes show four buildings and two garages, entering off the alley on the south edge of the property.

A few years ago, Shooks Run was a hot spot for infill projects as developers proposed three large projects clustered around the creek and East Kiowa Street.

First was the 10-unit Kiowa Creek Lofts in 2003, then the Pikes Peak Plaza commercial/retail project just east along the creek in 2004 and finally a 20-unit condo on Kiowa in 2007.

The historic neighborhood on the east edge of downtown was not too happy about any of them.

It mobilized to oppose the projects fearing they would change the character of the neighborhood, which dates  to its annexation in 1872.

None was ever built.

Now, with development starting to heat back up, one of the projects has been retooled and will come back before the Colorado Springs Planning Commission on Thursday. It’s called the Kiowa Creek Homes.

Plans by Martin Newton and his PAX Development call for two duplexes and two single-family homes, each with three bedrooms, on a lot at 507 E. Kiowa St.

To squeeze four buildings and two garages onto the commercially zoned, half-acre lot, Newton is seeking a variance from the required 12 off-street parking spaces. He wants just six.

Newton also wants a variance so his buildings can sit just 15 feet back from the sidewalk instead of the required 20 feet.

Neighbors are split on the project. A big objection is the density.

An artist renderning shows the Kiowa Creek Homes from the alley.

An artist rendering shows the Kiowa Creek Homes from the front off Kiowa Street. The project was redesigned from its 2003 loft proposal to more closely resemble the century-old homes of the neighborhood.

The Kiowa Creek Loft project was a four-story building that neighbors complained clashed with homes on the block.

“I think they are trying to cram too much onto the lot,” said Louise Conner, president of the Middle Shooks Run Neighborhood Association, which opposes the plan.

However, neighbors are relieved it’s not another hideous, huge four-story box building as Newton proposed and won approval for in 2003.

Newton significantly redesigned the project and configured smaller buildings in similar architectural style as the surrounding century-old houses.

Conner said neighbors appreciate the revisions. (See them on my blog.)

“They did make adjustments to the exteriors to make the porches look slightly more like the old homes on that street,” Conner said.

This is a view of the lot from the alley looking northeast.

Regardless, she wants the codes for parking and setback enforced.

City planner Ryan Tefertiller is recommending approval, noting the neighborhood is not strictly residential and zoning would allow Newton to build sidewalk-to-alley with little regard to aesthetics.

“I think this project is about the best scenario you could hope for in a long-vacant, commercially zoned property,” Tefertiller said. “It’s zoning would permit a lot of things the neighborhood would be pretty strongly opposed to. If I were a neighbor, I’d be pretty darn happy with this proposal.”

I’m guessing neighbors are not convinced. And I’m wondering, can the other two projects be far behind?

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NEIGHBORS TELL BROADMOOR TO PITCH TENT

March 9th, 2012, 11:30 am by

This is the type of tent, covering 40,000 square feet, that The Broadmoor wants to erect next to its Events Center for the Space Symposium in April and other conventions.

Say your neighbor wanted to put up a tent in the backyard and have a few friends over for a weekend party. No problem, right?

What if your neighbor was The Broadmoor hotel, its tent covered 40,000 square feet and its guest list included hundreds of conventioneers attending the Space Symposium next month?

Yeah, that’s a little different. And, as you might expect, a few folks living near the proposed 7.3-acre tent site have a problem with it.

The 7.3-acre parcel where The Broadmoor intends to erect a 40,000-square-foot tent currently is used for employee parking. Neighbors object to both uses. Neighbor Hannah Polmer's house can be seen in the center at the far end of the lot.

Hannah Polmer's home on Mesa Avenue sits up against a wall around the 7.3-acre vacant parcel where The Broadmoor wants to erect a huge tent.

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One neighbor, Hannah Polmer, is so upset she is asking the Colorado Springs Planning Commission to block the tent as a zoning violation. She also wants parking banned. The appeal is set for debate March 15.

“We and several of our neighbors are concerned that the tent is not consistent with the use permitted,” Polmer said in a letter to the city. (She declined to talk to me.)

Her letter noted that since the hotel built its Event Center in 2003, the adjacent 7.3-acre parcel has been vacant.

Here's an architect's drawing of the 7.3-acre parcel where The Broadmoor wants to erect a 40,000-square-foot tent over an asphalt parking lot.

 It is awaiting 17 planned high-end “brownstone” duplexes, similar to units on nearby Lake Avenue.

She and others want the brownstones built to preserve the area’s residential character. They’d accept a park until the economy improves and the brownstones project can proceed.

But they don’t want tents and cars on the lot.

“Our even greater concern is the presence of this tent indicates undisclosed plans by the Broadmoor Hotel to undertake more extensive development in that area,” Polmer wrote. “We have no assurance that there will be a buffer between the properties as provided for under City Code.”

Others living along Mesa Avenue share her concerns, including fear the tent will become permanent, not just used on occasion for a few conventions.

Hannah Polmer's house and property abut the 7.3-acre parcel on two sides. The small circles zig-zagging along the perimeter represent pine trees The Broadmoor transplanted on the berm to shielf her property.

The arguments did not sway city planner Mike Schultz, who approved the Broadmoor’s request to amend its development plan to allow the tent.

He said the hotel could easily get a temporary permit for the tent. This will just be more convenient.

“The Space Symposium has grown so big they’ve run out of room in their event center,” Schultz said. “Intead of putting booths in their parking structure, they want to put them in the tent. It’s a nuisance and a safety issue.”

Schultz also granted the hotel a variance from zoning to allow employees to park on the lot when the tent is not in use, as they have for five years.

He said the tent is an improvement over the hotel’s greenhouse, a gas station and a maintenance facility that stood on the land for years. And the hotel has built a six-foot berm, topped by a wall and transplanted a couple dozen pine trees to try to shield the neighbors.

“The hotel doesn’t know how much more they can do,” Schultz said. “Some of the neighbors just don’t want to se it happen at all. We’ve tried to mediate it.”

I’m guessing regardless how the Planning Commission rules, the City Council will end up deciding this one.

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IT’S OK IF TRASH BINS REMIND YOU OF NEIGHBORHOOD

March 4th, 2012, 11:30 am by

Sandy Hill offers a dog treat to Uriah as his owner, Scott Cooper, and neighbor Dennis Moore look on. Neighbor Mary Polomus watches from her porch.

It’s not every day you win a large rolling trash bin in a raffle.

So what was Sandy Hill’s reaction when she learned recently she’d be getting a free 10-yard dumper courtesy a home and garden show contest?

“I immediately thought of our Neighborhood Watch,” Sandy said. “Several years ago we got a 20-yard Dumpster. We talked about doing it again. But money’s been tight.”

Sandy’s luck is being shared with the 14 or so other families on tiny Bandelier Drive in the modest Pikes Peak Park neighborhood east of Prospect Lake.

Sandy’s reaction — thinking of her neighbors — is exactly the reflex leaders of Neighborhood Watch are trying to develop across Colorado Springs.

Bandelier Street is a textbook example because one of its residents is Dennis Moore, who has dedicated his retirement to serving as the Colorado Springs Police Department‘s top Neighborhood Watch volunteer.

He helps recruit and train block captains for the program and spreads the gospel of Neighborhood Watch with classes and programs across the city.

Sandy said Dennis has converted everyone on Bandelier to the benefits of Neighborhood Watch.

“We’ve got a good group,” she said. “We watch out for each other.”

Neighborhood Watch has enriched her life with its quarterly meetings and annual barbecue.

“When we meet, it’s like family,” Sandy said. “When I go out of town, I tell those around me. They pick up my mail and keep an eye on things. It’s a great neighborhood.”

Bandelier didn’t need a formal Neighobrhood Watch program when Mary Polomus and her husband moved in to their little home in 1961.

“We had a nice neighborhood,” Mary said, sitting on her porch Thursday as Scott Cooper of Bin There Dump That lowered the trash dumper into her yard. She volunteered her home in the middle of the block to host the bin.

“Back then, there were 40 children in this block,” she said, waving at the tidy little homes, many built in the late 1950s with a couple bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms and a single-car garage.

Sandy Hill and Dennis Moore begin filling the 10-yard rolling trash bin.

“We raised six children in this house,” Mary said.

“The women would stand in the street in the mornings with our coffee and decide what we were going to do that day.”

She smiled at the memory.

“We left our doors unlocked and we left our keys in the car,” she said. “Those days are gone.”

Although neighbors are friendly, there are no morning sidewalk coffee klatches.

And Mary’s glad to have a new group in the neighborhood to lean on.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know what I’d do without my neighbors,” she said. “The neighborhood is slowly coming back and Neighborhood Watch is helping.”

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The Crime Prevention Website lists classes.  Below is a list of some of the current classes and location that are scheduled.

March 5th, 6:30-7:30 P.M., Active Shooter for Citizens at the Sand Creek Division

March 8th, 6-8 P.M., Home Safety at the Falcon Division

March 15th, 6 P.M., Responsible Firearm Ownership at the Gold Hill Division

March 22nd, 7 P.M., Home Security at the Stetson Hills Division

Dennis R. Moore

Neighborhood Watch Coordinator

Sand Creek Division

Colorado Springs Police Department

4125 Center Park Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80916

719-444-7206

MOOREDE@ci.colospgs.co.us

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ARE ALLEYS THE NEW MAIN STREET?

March 2nd, 2012, 1:08 pm by

The alley south of Bijou Street, between Cascade Avenue and Tejon Street.

 

An artist's rendering of how the alley might look as a pedestrian space.

Ever consider the appearance of your alley?

Or its functionality?

Or what it could be other than a place for garbage cans and delivery trucks?

Me, neither.

But some folks do think about stuff like that and they are re-imagining what alleys of downtown Colorado Springs could be.

Inspired by a couple of artists/gallery owners, a local architectural firm is working with the Downtown Partnership and others to see if it can create a new urban space from an alley.

Art lovers outside the S.P.Q.R. and Modbo galleries on Thursday night. Owners Lauren and Brett Andrus have used the alley for a wedding reception and concerts and hope to make it more pedestrian friendly.The entrances to the side-by-side galleries S.P.Q.R. and Modbo in the alley off Bijou Street.

I’m intrigued by the idea.

The entrances to the side-by-side galleries S.P.Q.R. and Modbo in the alley off Bijou Street.

“We try to look around downtown and see what we are missing,” said Ron Butlin, executive director of Downtown Partnership.

“Are there under-utilized spaces in downtown? In my opinion, there are. We have wall space where murals could go. We have parks that are under-utilized.

“And we have alleys. These are clearly spaces not being utilized for anything other than service.”

Actually, artists Lauren and Brett Andrus have begun already. They own the Modbo and S.P.Q.R. art galleries located in an alley off Bijou Street.

They have held a wedding reception in the alley and concerts, Butlin said.

“It’s really an exciting idea,” he said.

Others are doing it, too. Fort Collins and Pasadena, Calif., are a couple places reinventing their alleyways as public spaces, he said.

I can see some of you shaking your heads.

Not convinced?

KB&A Architects has produced this artist's rendering of how the alley might look.

Then attend Monday’s open house at HB&A Architects, which has been brainstorming ideas for the Modbo/S.P.Q.R. alley between Cascade Avenue and Tejon Street in the two blocks between Platte Avenue and Kiowa Street.

It’s not such a radical idea. I’ve done business in alleys. It’s not what you’re thinking, either! I used to go to a cobbler in the alley. It reminded me of Chicago, the Billy Goat Tavern and Lower Wacker Drive.

L&H Jewelery operates across the alley from Modbo. I even ducked in a trendy alley bar once, called 15C, until the cigar smoke drove me out. (Guess I’m not hip.)

The backs of the buildings are as interesting as the Tejon Street facades. It’s a cool, urban space if you overlook the rolling trash dumpers and transients.

Looking at HB&As drawings, I can envision how a few changes — strands of twinkling lights, interesting planters and benches and stone pavers — can transform the alley into an exciting urban pedestrian space.

“If we dress up the space in those back areas, we’d have a wonderful area to congregate,” said Andrea Barker of HB&A, 102 E. Moreno Ave. “This is an interesting space. It’s gritty and edgy.”

And if Colorado Springs wants to attract young urbanites, these are the kinds of things we need to explore. I’m an alley kinda guy. I say give it a shot.

Collage of photos from Fort Collins and its alleyscape.

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