On Friday, I witnessed the birth of Colorado Springs’ own Lorax society.

OK. That’s not its actual name. And there were no truffula trees. Or brown Bar-ba-loots.

But this group would make Dr. Seuss proud.

It’s the new non-profit Palmer Tree Coalition and its mission is to protect and preserve the urban forest created by our own Lorax — Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer.

Colorado Springs in the 1870s

When Palmer arrived in the Pikes Peak region in 1869, it was treeless prairie.

In the years after Palmer’s men drove the first stake to create Colorado Springs in 1871, his town company planted 10,000 trees, which ultimately led to neighborhoods today shaded under canopies of mature elms, oaks, ash and maple trees.

But the recent climate and economy have not been kind to Springs-area trees. Drought stressed the region’s trees, leaving them vulnerable to disease and beetle infestations, which decimated our urban forest.

In the past decade, thousands of trees died or were destroyed. Then the economy cratered, prompting city officials to reduce the parks budget to a stump.

“We are a friends group created to support the city forestry department,” said Nancy Strong, of the coalition. “We are encouraging people to plant and care for trees. We’re hoping to raise some funds and support city forestry and keep our urban forest thriving.”

Colorado Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer encouraged pioneers to plant trees around the city after its founding in 1871.

It was only appropriate the group held its first fundraising effort on Friday. It was Arbor Day.

The group met in a park in the Middle Shooks Run neighborhood and celebrated the day by honoring 41 Columbia Elementary School students who wrote and illustrated essays about trees. Prizes of books and seedlings were distributed.

And there was a tree planting event, of course.

Finally, several coalition members sold several dozen trees for planting. Proceeds will help fund the coalition.

The trees were a variety of hackberry, catalpa and Kentucky coffee trees. Most were balled and bugged in burlap for planting along city streets.

The event kicked off what the coalition hopes will be an ongoing effort to sell trees. Anyone interested in learning more can email PalmerTreeCoalition@gmail.com or call 520-7679 for details..

“We’re trying to carry on the legacy of Gen. Palmer,” said Barbara Bates, one of the coalition members.

“We need trees,” she said. “Trees are so important to making this a human-friendly environment.”

Ever wonder what the Springs would look like without Gen. Lorax, I mean Palmer and his tree-planting vision?

Drive south toward Pueblo and imagine your house. Surrounded by dirt.

Nothing to provide shade. Nothing to stop the wind. To protect birds.

And no truffula fruits for the brown Bar-ba-loots.

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LORAX SOCIETY CARRIES ON WORK OF SPRINGS FOUNDER is a post from: Side Streets

This diagram is the plan for a community garden in the Mill Street neighborhood. A plumber will build an irrigaiton system then volunteers will install 60 raised beds and other amenities.

Mill Street is one of my favorite neighborhoods — a working class, industrial area south of downtown with about 150 small homes, many built in the 1890s, and 30 or so businesses.

It’s bisected by railroad tracks and sits in the shadow of the Drake Power Plant with its piles of coal and constant train traffic.

Mill Street is an authentic blue-collar neighborhood with plenty of character: gravel streets, missing sidewalks and colorful residents.

That’s right. This neighborhood less than a mile from the trendy restaurants, towering bank buildings and nightclubs of downtown still has gravel streets.

“It’s a neighborhood that was kind of left behind,” said John Himmelreich, neighborhood activist.

Some of its rough edges, however, are being smoothed away thanks to the work of folks like Himmelreich and others. Today, gravel is disappearing under pavement paid for by Community Development Block Grants. Curbs, gutters and sidewalks are being installed along with improved drainage systems and streetlights.

And, in a couple weeks, Mill Street will get a community garden.

We’re talking an irrigated, fenced, organic garden with 60 raised beds, a tool shed and compost area and maybe even a picnic area and outdoor kitchen.

“We’re getting in our time machine and heading 115 years into the future,” Himmelriech joked.

Volunteers led by Larry Stebbins and his Pikes Peak Urban Gardens are building the garden, backed by a $27,000 grant. The largest chunk will pay Colorado Springs Utilities a $9,200 fee to tap into the city water system and for a plumber.

Fencing also is a major expense, along with the lumber, the “grade A” topsoil and manure for planting.

When it’s done, folks will pay $15 a year for water and insurance and just grow.

Larry Stebbins of the Pikes Peak Urban Gardens

All these improvement might never have happened if not for events in 1999 when civic leaders tried to build a $6 million facility to centralize city services for the homeless.

Then Utilities announced it would build a 500-foot-long railroad spur and store coal cars along Mill Street.

Residents organized, fought the shelter and won. The rail spur was built but even it provided benefits when 1.5 acres of cleared land was returned to the neighborhood and used to build affordable housing.

The neighborhood unity had a lasting impact. And Stebbins believes the garden will only help.

“The garden is in walking distance for most of the neighborhood,” Stebbins said. “It will bring the neighborhood closer together as they work and share and grow food.

“It’s going to be a beautiful garden.”

It will be just like the neighborhood. Some of it will be nice and new.

With a little dirt under the nails.

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PAVED STREETS, SIDEWALKS AND A GARDEN BRING MILL STREET UP-TO-DATE is a post from: Side Streets

The Ute Pass Regional Trail will pass through meadows and also along steep, winding, rocky passages west of Manitou Springs as it climbs toward Cascade. Courtesy El Paso County Parks Department

The Ute Pass Regional Trail west of Manitou Springs will travel along a Colorado Springs Utilities service road for a stretch.

David Johnson is a retired teacher and an avid hiker. Brags he’s done all the area trails and many more.

“I’ve hiked all over the country,” Johnson said. “I enjoy it.”

I figured he’d be the last guy trying to block construction of a trail connecting Manitou Springs with Woodland Park.

But Johnson is campaigning loudly against efforts by El Paso County to complete the Ute Pass Regional Trail.

To rally his neighbors and convince the county it shouldn’t build a 3-mile stretch of trail that includes a frontage road along busy U.S. Highway 24 in Cascade,

Historic trail marker. Courtesy El Paso County Parks Department

Johnson is using scare tactics, painting one extreme scenario after another.

“I’ve seen a lot of cigarettes thrown into the brush,” Johnson said. “I’ve seen fire rings where they’re not allowed. Booze bottles.

“There are so many idiots using public facilities. If they build this trail, we’ll have all these people coming in and it only takes one.”

You’ve probably figured out the trail would run past Johnson’s home, one of a half-dozen or so on the frontage road.

Johnson insists he doesn’t want to stop people from enjoying their public land.

“I’m not against anybody hiking or learning about nature,” he said.

But he said the frontage road is private land. A trail would violate his privacy.

“I’m objecting to them being on my property,” Johnson said, though county officials say it’s public and a utility easement gives them the right to build the trail.

He also suggests upwards of 30,000 people a year will tackle the steep, twisting trail officials hope to build between Manitou Springs and Green Mountain Falls, where the trail now ends.

Eventually, Johnson gets to the heart of his opposition: “Our goal is to re-route the trail away from our neighborhood.”

He doesn’t care where it goes as long as it’s not in his front yard.

His wailing has achieved some success.

This is the view from GoogleEarth of the frontage road where neighbors are fighting a stretch of the Ute Pass Regional Trail.

The county abandoned an idea of building a trailhead at the end of the frontage road, easing fears of traffic and parking.

“The trailhead has been completely ruled out at this time,” said El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark, “because of the concerns of the neighbors.”

But the frontage road remains a possible link in the trail, depending on the outcome of upcoming meetings to gather opinions.

“We’re going to do a more robust public hearing process and get input from all residents and stakeholders on that leg of the trail,” Clark said.

She noted there aren’t a lot of options for threading a trail through the steep, narrow terrain of Ute Pass.

Here's the approximate route of the trail from Ruxton Canyon in Manitou Springs as its heads west of Ute Pass.

And, frankly, she believes it will attract only a fraction of the volume Johnson predicts.

Still, it’s an important link and the county is committed to completing it.

After all, even boozing, pyromaniacal idiots deserve to hike!

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AVID HIKER PROTESTS PROPOSED TRAIL: NIMBY is a post from: Side Streets

She and other neighbors knew the hard-fought site development plan approved by the city in 2006 called for Todays Homesto build lower-profile townhomes that slope down, with the natural grade, not sit atop 7 feet of dirt.

One of three Dublin Terrace Townhome buildings built in violation of the development plan, the city says.

But before long, her home and the others on Whereabout Court, along with several on Many Springs Drive, were being dwarfed by three towering new townhome buildings, each upwards of 35-40 feet tall.

“I look out my window and their front doors are higher than my fence,” English said. “These buildings loom over me. This is crazy.”

The development plan called for the townhomes to slope down with the grade. Instead, developer Todays Homes hauled in tons of dirt, built a retaining wall and elevated the entire structures about 7 feet, the city says.

Now, those buildings are ready for occupancy but the city won’t allow it because officials say they are in serious violation of the development plan.

Todays Home president Mil Younkers says the structures were built by mistake and he’s asking the Colorado Springs Planning Commission at its April 19 meeting to amend the 2006 site plan and let them remain.

Younkers insists it’s not a case of a rogue developer deliberately ignoring the blueprints, building what he wanted and then asking forgiveness once construction was finished.

“No one maliciously went out and built those units,” Younkers said.

The city-approved development plan called for lower-profile structures, like the brown building in the middle, to be adjacent to the neighborhood, on the left, and buffer the homes from more massive buildings like the one on the right.

 “We’ve told the homeowners it was a mistake. We told the city we made a mistake. Now how do we rectify it?”

Younkers said the error is the result of a complete change in leadership at Todays Homes in 2009 when he was hired as president and brought in a new team.

He said his team struggled to sell three townhomes in the first low-profile building constructed a year ago.

“The market was not responding to the units approved for those lots,” he said. “We made the marketing decision to build (larger) units.

“We contacted our surveyor and confirmed they would fit and we made the change.”

But the development plan dictates what could be built, I told him.

The blueprints show exactly which type building goes on which lot. There was no ambiguity I could see. How could that be a mistake?

“No one understood specific building types were called out on that plan,” Younkers said. “It got by us all.”

New Dublin Terrace Townhome buildings tower over a home on Whereabout Court.

English scoffed at that explanation. Me, too.

“They are professional builders,” she said. “How could you not know that?”

Younkers added that the city should have caught the error when Todays Homes requested building permits or during multiple inspections by the Regional Building Department.

This comparison shows how the foundation of the original lower-profile townhome on the left slopes down with the natural grade while the new building on the right steps up and sits atop a retaining wall and 7-feet of dirt.

City planner Rick O’Connor rejects that suggestion, pointing to the blueprints, which spell out detailed guidelines for grading and building types.

“We had very specific conditions on the developer to address the impacts of size, scale and bulk of this project on the adjacent single family homes,” O’Connor said. “That’s why we required lower-profile units next to the neighborhood.”

So what happens now, I wondered.

The city is evaluating the Todays Homes proposal and taking neighbors’ suggestions.

The feedback is not terribly positive.

“Tear them down,” said Bill Sheridan, a seven-year Whereabout Court resident. “The developer admitted they couldn’t make any money selling the smaller units. So they decided to build the larger buildings.

One of Todays Homes floorplans for the Dublin Terrace Townhomes

“The city ought to pull their license, fine them to the maximum extent of the law, tear them down and put in what was approved.”

Would the city be satisfied with Younkers’ suggestion he chop 8 feet out of the roofs of each building to soften the lines and plant 50 trees to buffer the buildings?

“I think it’s going to very difficult for them to comply with our review criteria,” O’Connor said ominously. “I think moving the buildings may be an option.”

Moving buildings that cost $300,000 or so to build? Really?

“It’s not conceivable that these buildings could be moved,” Younkers said.

Well, then. Maybe a solution will emerge from a neighborhood meeting Younkers is planning next week.

Or, I suppose, they could just take Sheridan’s suggestion: “Blow them up!”

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DEVELOPER SAYS MASSIVE TOWNHOMES BUILT ‘BY MISTAKE’ is a post from: Side Streets

Vidia Hurdowar loves animals, but the 9-year-old girl suffers from allergies and can’t have a typical pet such as a cat or dog.

So her folks found an animal she could keep and love without getting sick: chickens.

For two years, Vidia has raised four feathered friends: Summerset, Marene, Reddy and Island.

They eat from her hand and lay eggs that she shares with neighbors.

“I feel like they are my friends,” said Vidia, an honors student in 4th grade at Scott Elementary School.

“They let me hold them and pet them,” Vidia told me. She also described how they run the yard of her home near Austin Bluffs Parkway and Stetson Hills Boulevard in northeast Colorado Springs.

“I feed them and give them straw for their nests,” she said.

And she writes about them daily in her diary.

But now she’s contemplating life without her pets.

While city codes allow chickens, but not roosters, the covenants of the Heights at Templeton Homeowners Association don’t permit farm animals.

Doesn’t matter if they are pets, like Vidia’s chickens.

Doesn’t matter if their clucks are far more quiet than neighborhood dogs.

Someone complained and the HOA board has no choice, said Bob Hauptman, the president of the board.

“The problem is, the covenants are very definite,” Hauptman said, expressing sympathy for Vidia and her chickens. “They clearly state no farm animals.”

Hauptman said there was no problem until a neighbor saw the chickens and complained to the board.

“It’s one of those things,” he said. “We feel for them. Nobody knew they were there until they let them out.”

When the chickens were small, they stayed in a shed.

Then Vidia’s dad built a nice coop for them and fenced the yard so they could run around freely.

Pow! That newfound freedom led to the neighbor complaint and now an order from the HOA to evict the chickens.

“We didn’t realize we were breaking the covenants,” said Maya Hurdowar, mother of Vidia. “City regulations say you can have chickens. We didn’t know it was against HOA rules. We wrote them. But they said they are allowed to be stricter than the city law.

“We wrote them and asked them for a variance, for my daughter’s sake. These are her pets.”

The variance was not granted. On a 2-1 vote, the HOA board voted to enforce the covenants.

Hauptman said it’s better the chickens are going peacefully than the way another neighbors’ chickens disappeared.

“They coyotes got them,” he said. “One night they wiped out the chickens.”

Maybe there’s a place nearby where Vidia’s chickens would be welcome. And she could come visit them. Any takers?

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HOA TOO CHICKEN TO OVERRULE COVENANTS AND ALLOW PETS is a post from: Side Streets