Turns out there are 60-80 homes sprinkled around the city that are advertised around the world in Web sites as vacation rental properties.

They are favored by parents of Air Force Academy cadets when they come for parents’ weekend or graduation.

Many families looking for a reunion site prefer vacation homes over hotels or bed-and-breakfast inns.

Folks with special needs, like sterilized kitchens or quiet places for elderly or children, often choose vacation rental homes over hotels.

Problem is, they bring a parade of strangers into neighborhoods. Strangers who soak up parking spaces and sometimes hold late parties. A few people living near vacation rental houses have begun complaining to the city about the situation.

So Dick Anderwald, the city’s land use and planning chief, created the Vacation Home Rental Task Force Committee to study the issue. He appointed neighborhood activists, vacation rental home owners and city planning staff to the task force.

Here’s the agenda for the initial meeting in September:  vacationrentals. Please note that the roster of task force members changed after this was printed. Michael Clark and Autumn Hyser dropped out.

One of the task force members, Jackie Ayers, owns the “Old Colorado Springs” 1902 Downtown House W/ Private Hot Tub - Colorado Springs  Here’s a look at her house from the Web site:

She also manages a vacation rental for another owner. Ayers said the task force is an over-reaction to the complaints of a few people, including two task force members who live near vacation rental homes — one on the Westside and one in the Broadmoor.

Anderwald apparently agreees. He said the issue appears to be confined to a small area of the city and the task force likely won’t produce new rules and regulations.

However, owners of vacation rental homes likely will start getting tax bills from the city for sales taxes they have not been paying.

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Post from: Side Streets

  Most people look out their back windows and, beyond the fence, can see into their neighbor’s kitchen or family room or bedrooms.

 Not true for folks in Oak Valley Ranch, a neighborhood tucked in the foothills between Mountain Shadows and Peregrine on Colorado Springs‘ northwest edge.

 Especially for families living on Front Royal, Coldwater and Hollandale drives.

 They back up to Castle Concrete Co.’s  Pikeview Quarry. Above is a 2001 photo of the quarry from The Gazette’s archives.

 We’re not talking Fred Flintstone here, either. This is the real thing, visible for miles along Interstate 25, just south of the Air Force Academy.

Lately, Oak Valley Ranch residents have had front-row seats for dramatic landslides that have sent upwards of 2 million tons of limestone cascading down the mountainside.

 The first slide occured Dec. 2, 2008, and dumped and estimated 1.5 million tons of limestone into the pit at the base of the cliff. The slide is obvious in the photo, above, taken the same day by The Gazette’s Carol Lawrence.

 But the mountain wasn’t done rockin’ and rollin’ yet. It let loose again Sept. 13 with a blast that sounded like thunder to neighbors who ran from their homes and ate dinner on their patios, watching as boulders the size of locomotives plunged down the cliff, dropping another 250,000 tons before it was done. 

Here’s a look at the two slides.

 Reader Chris Dorry posted on YouTube video of the slide that you can watch it on this link. At about the two minute mark, you’ll actually see landslide activity as rock breaks off and rolls. My friends at KOAA TV NewsFirst 5 also got some nice footage you can view here.

Here’s another cool video clip  that gives a great view of the landslide.

Here’s a photo of the action captured by neighbor Rob Hellem, who heard what he described as “rolling thunder” during dinner around 6 p.m. and looked out to see all heck breaking loose.

Experts say they expect further movement in the quarry.

M.L. “Mac” Shafer is vice president of Transit Mix Aggregates, which owns Castle Concrete and the Pikeview Quarry - a complex of about 100-mineable acres on a 190-acre tract.

 Transit Mix owned the Queens Quarry above the Garden of the Gods, which operated from about 1955 to 1989 and now has been reclaimed. The company also operates the Black Canyon Quarry behind Cedar Heights. And it has a sand mine along South Academy Boulevard.

Castle Concrete bought the Pikeview in 1969. It was operated for years by Peter Kiewit and Sons, Shafer said. It’s now known as Kiewit Western Corp.

Shafer said geologists agree that more landslides will occur. He said the limestone on the surface of the mountain sits on a layer of clay attached to the decomposed granite base that makes up Pikes Peak and much of the Front Range.

A year of steady snow and rain has saturated the limestone, coupled with the freeze-thaw cycle, caused it to slide, Shafer said.

On Feb. 12, federal Mine Safety and Health Administration officials issued five citations to Transit Mix and fined the company $2,564 for safety violations in connection with the slide. Shafer said the officials accused the company of mining too much of the base of the mountain, causing it to become unstable.

Since then, the company has been limited to removing its stockpiles of crushed limestone. The mine became more of a classroom for geologists and other scientists from around the world who have come to study the landslide.

After the Sept. 13 landslide, the mine has been shut down. Most of the stockpiles are exhausted. The conveyors of the rock crushers are sunning beds for bobcats. Deer and other wildlife are the only thing moving about in the mine.

Sophisticated laser sensors watch the mountainside, measuring it every few hours for any movement. Shafer said the company is developing a plan it hopes to present next June for possibly reopening the mine and finishing reclamation efforts.

Neighbors, meanwhile, are wondering if there’s any danger in rocks rolling into their backyards. Look at these bad boys hanging from the top of the latest slide. Shafer estimates the larger boulder on the right weighs at 20,000 tons! Like a locomotive perched on the mountainside.

Shafer said such a disaster is not likely. Below is a look at the mine, prior to the landslides, from GoogleEarth. It shows the pit.

For now, things are calm again. But, eventually, experts expect the mine to break loose again. They are especially watching a fault at the apex of the mine above the most recent slide. On a recent hike with a geologist, Shafer said he was able to actually look into the fault and see the spot where the limestone, clay and granite meet.

For now, the landslide have not destroyed all the reclamation efforts done over the past decade on the southern rim of the mine. More than 2,000 trees have been planted on the ledges of the mine by volunteers with the Colorado Mountain Reclamation Foundation.

Post from: Side Streets

She understands that heavy construction equipment can ruin sidewalks. But she’s tired of shuffling through the dirt and mud, getting scratched by weeds and dodging snakes as she walks her neighborhood.

The mess can’t be avoided because a long stretch of sidewalk along Centennial Boulevard is missing near the Chesham Village South Townhomes, being developed by Clancy Building and Design.

Below is a look at the project’s Web page. This architect’s drawing shows six buildings. Only three are built . . . the two along Chesham Circle on the north and the building on the western edge of the project. The three on the south side of Chelsea Village Heights have not been built.

Here’s a look at what actually exists on Chelsea Village Heights:

The street is blocked by a fence. Beyond it, you can see the corner and the missing sidewalks where neighbors deal with a dirt trail.

Here’s a closer look at the dirt trail, facing south along Centennial Boulevard.

Below is a vew to the north, showing how kids must dodge a steel structure to make their way down to the bus stop:

Developer Al Clancy said he’d love to finish the project and install the sidewalks. But he said there’s not much he can do until the economy improves and he can resume construction of his townhomes.

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Post from: Side Streets

          It is a classic company town — synonymous with General Motors and the auto industry.

         For decades, the city enjoyed a love affair with GM, then the world’s leading automobile manufacturer. According to the U.S. Census, Flint’s population peaked at nearly 200,000 in 1960 and as late as 1978, it counted 80,000 auto-industry jobs.

       Here’s the famous arch over Saginaw Street in Flint:

       Unfortunately, it has suffered right along with GM, starting with the 1970s oil crisis, labor unrest, years of recession, failure and ultimately the company’s slow-motion collapse into bankruptcy. 

      Now, Flint is known as a classic Rust Belt city, poster child for the demise of the Big Three Automakers, synonymous with layoffs, plant closings, off-shore outsourcing and brownfield.  

      Unemployment. Foreclosures. Poverty. All are sky-high in Flint, which has shrunk to a town of about 125,000 people.

      As a result, homes sit abandoned in decaying neighborhoods.

      Officials have taken a radical approach to fight the decay, improve the overall appearance of Flint and rid the town of its rot by erasing entire neighborhoods from the city. Open space is replacing boarded-up houses.

      It’s not much different than GM shedding dealers, factories and employees.

       Read about it, or listen to a fascinating report at NPR.

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Post from: Side Streets

Here’s a story from May 4, 2001, by The Gazette’s Rich Laden about the project.

Nor’wood wasn’t content to just see 7,000 homes built in its Wolf Ranch project. It wanted to create a community.

 The seeds of  this community development were planted by Nor’wood in a series of decisions. The first was to charge a small fee for each house sold in Wolf Ranch and use the money to fund community events.

 Then the developer hosted monthly pot luck dinners and summer concerts in the 3-acre Gateway Park it built in the center of the subdivision. The park includes a large pavilion, a waterfall and pond. They act as a magnet for folks to come and gather.

 Here is a slideshow of Gateway Park from the Wolf Ranch Web site:

Here is a look at Wolf Ranch from www.FlashEarth.com:

 Here’s a closer look at the park:

 Neighbors have gotten into the habit of gathering at the park and now have started holding wine and cheese tastings there, Frisbee golf tournaments, barbecues and large Fourth of July celebrations.

That’s what is planned this weekend. Neighbors have planned, arranged for sponsors, hired catering and scheduled a long list of events for an Independence Day celebration. Games and contests with prizes. Food. Music. Even stand-up comedy! All for just $6 to Wolf Ranch residents.

Here’s a look at the parade from a past Wolf Ranch July 4th celebration:

One of the organizers is Jon Hart and he is proud of the work the neighbors have done to organize a really big party. It will all have a definite neighborhood flavor, down to the song parodies like “Pick Up Your Dog Poo” sung to the tune of U2’s song “With or Without You.”

It’s exactly the kind of thing Nor’wood hoped would occur as it turned over the subdivision to neighborhood control.

Luckily for me, there aren’t many neighborhoods like Wolf Ranch.

Or there would be no need for Side Streets!

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Post from: Side Streets