And all of them are open for visitors this weekend if you want to take a peek!

It’s not a springtime Parade of Homes. It’s the third-annual 2012 Take a Peak Chicken Coop Tour.

This weekend, about 20 coops from Black Forest to Manitou Springs to downtown Colorado Springs will be open for viewing.

Anyone interested in raising chickens is invited to take the free, self-guided tour and learn how to start your own coop.

The tour was the idea of “chickenman” John Conner.

“A couple ladies I worked with got interested in keeping chickens and came over and saw my coop,” John said. “Then they said they’d like to see more.”

So he arranged for a dozen or so folks with chickens to allow folks to see their coops. That was 2010.

“The first year, we had 80 people show,” he said. “Last year, I lost count after 120.”

And that was with mininal advertising.

This year John’s not sure what to expect. He hopes people will learn how easy it is to raise chickens.

“They are pets that give you breakfast,” John said with a laugh.

He started raising them about five years ago and now has five birds. He said they are quiet and no more work than a big dog.

“You have to clean up after them and feed them,” he said. “But they don’t go outside and start barking. They may cluck, but you won’t hear them.”

John created a CoopTourDirectory_2012_draft_2 for tour. It’s 22 pages of photos and tips about raising chickens.

I was intrigued at elaborate coops some build.

John’s coop, at his Shooks Run neighborhood home, is solar-powered with panels on the roof.

Another fellow made his coop out of “cob.”

“Basically, it’s mud and straw,” John said. “And tree limbs and things.”

Then there’s a coop in Black Forest on wheels.

Coops on the tour range from basic plywood to elaborate structures disguised as small cottages or playhouses.

There are a few rules for tour-goers. Don’t bring pets. Don’t scare the chickens. And some coops will only be open for limited times during the weekend.

John also provides information on Colorado Springs codes. For example, residents can have 10 chickens but no roosters in the city. And chicken coop poop must be picked up every few days and kept in a sealed container.

Basic stuff.

Follow this link if you want a  CoopTourMaps_2012, of print one off at John’s website. Or just drop by his house 712 N. Cedar Street east of downtown.

A pet that gives you breakfast, huh? My dog won’t even get me the morning paper!

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GET A LOOK AT A PET THAT BRINGS YOU BREAKFAST is a post from: Side Streets

If you are a fan of history, as I am, enjoy a cold microbrew and good food at unique restaurants, as I do, then maybe you, too, will want to join one of the most interesting promotions of historic preservation I’ve stumbled upon.

It’s the Historic Buildings Restaurant & Pub Crawl sponsored by the Colorado Springs Historic Preservation Board.

The event is going on all May as part of the celebration of National Preservation Month.

If you don’t care to eat and drink your history lessons, there are other events that will immerse you in the area’s rich history.

This link takes you to a cool then-and-now slide show.

In fact, on Thursday night a tour is scheduled of the old chapel at Evergreen Cemetery with director Will DeBoer.

It will start at 7:30 p.m. at the cemetery, 1005 S. Hancock Expressway, and will include lots of anecdotes and fun facts.

Participants should park outside the cemetery gates, walk to the chapel and bring a sweater and a flashlight.

Next Thursday, May 24, the Pioneers Museum will offer a behind-the-scenes tour, starting at 6 p.m. Museum director Matt Mayberry will lead the after-hours look at the old El Paso County Courthouse, 215 S. Tejon St. Space is limited, so RSVP with an email to Preservation Board staffer Erin McCauley, emccauley@springsgov.com. (The tour may include a trip to the bell tower!)

And at 2 p.m., Sunday, May 27, author Jennifer Wendler Lovell will lead a 1.5-mile walking tour of Wood Avenue. Participants will be able to buy the book she co-wrote: “Exploring the Old North End Neighborhood of Colorado Springs: A Guide to its History and Architecture.”

Those all sound great but I’m most interested in the pub crawl.

The board has compiled a list of 10 restaurant/pubs that occupy historic buildings, mostly downtown, in a pamphlet available on my blog and the city’s website.

On the right is the cover of the brochure:

The restaurants and their buildings are listed with brief descriptions. Visit six of the 10 in May, get a stamp on a postcard, mail it in and be entered to win free stuff!

Mayberry noted the irony of the historic pub crawl.

“If you were to look back at each of the deeds on those properties, you’d find deed restrictions attached prohibiting the sale and distribution of alcohol,” he said, noting Colorado Springs founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer wanted his resort town to be different.

“He didn’t want it become just a typical Western town,” Mayberry said.

If Palmer could see downtown any Friday night, he’d fall off his horse.

“It’s one of the tidbits that makes Colorado Springs unique,” Mayberry said. “Little things you get from historic preservation make the place you live more interesting.”

Here are the inside pages of the brochure and the postcard:

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HIDDEN GEMS, TOURS, PUB CRAWL . . . I LOVE HISTORY is a post from: Side Streets

Peter, Ben and Anna Vogrin with Bill Vogrin

It’s graduation time and I’ve got two soon-to-be grads in my family.

One is leaving college for the Fantasyland of the “real world.” (In fact, Anna has accepted a professional internship with the Walt Disney Co.)

The other is getting a high school diploma to become a professional college student. (Peter has received a scholarship to play soccer.)

Both are major milestones and huge accomplishments.

Like most parents, I’m very proud. And I’m a tad misty at what it means: two of my babies are nearly grown up. (They never will be fully grown, in my mind.)

It also means they are in serious need of some fatherly advice, whether they want it or not. (They don’t.)

With the help of my social media friends, I compiled a list of urgings and exhortations for them and the rest of the cap-and-gown crowd.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Peter, Ben and Anna Vogrin, circa 2001

Don’t worry, be happy. It’s a fun song and great advice. Try to be happy and laugh every chance you get.

And when you aren’t happy, remember what Don Henley sang as he tried to get to the heart of the matter: “I think it’s about forgiveness.”

Laughter and forgiveness will carry you far in life. (I confess they are goals I haven’t always achieved.)

I stress the “don’t worry” stuff because as great as life can be, it also will really suck at times.

No sense in worrying about it. Stuff, as they say, happens. To everyone. Accept that and learn to make the best of bad situations. Your life will be happier, in the long run.

Usually stuff happens because someone made a mistake. Often, mistakes occur when you are taking chances.

Of course, taking chances can result in great success, resulting in laughter and happiness. Don’t be afraid.

Am I making sense yet?

Another reason to laugh as much as possible is because we never know when the laughter will end. Could be in 50 years. Or it could be tomorrow. If today is all you’ve got, do you really want to spend it angry or unhappy?

Which leads me to another suggestion: Make as many friends as possible and spend as much time with them as you can. Time spent with family and friends, even doing nothing, rarely is wasted time.

Challenge yourself. Don’t settle for “good enough.”

Listen to others. Respect their point of view. Consider the chance you are wrong.

Fight for what’s right.

Make good decisions.

Peter, Anna and Ben Vogrin in 2009

Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. They are important dates in the lives of important people.

No one in Nigeria wants to give you $1 million.

No means no.

Drugs ruin lives. So do credit cards. And lies.

Always remember to floss, brush and wash your hands.

Tell the truth.

And, to Anna and Peter (and Ben), never forget: Dad loves you.

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CONGRATS, GRADS! NOW HERE’S MY ADVICE is a post from: Side Streets

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

Three new buildings in the Dublin Terrace Townhomes complex tower over the adjacent neighborhood. The city said the buildings violate the site development plan. Deverlop Todays Homes says their construction was “a mistake.”

Jeanne English knew something was wrong a few months ago when construction crews began piling mountains of dirt behind her fence to start three new buildings in the Dublin Terrace Townhomes.

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

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

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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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EAGLE-EYE HOA CATCHES PAINT TRIM MISMATCH . . . 12 YEARS LATER!! is a post from: Side Streets

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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BAKERY STUNNED WHEN YEARS OF NEIGHBORHOOD PEACE ENDS ABRUPTLY is a post from: Side Streets