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.

.

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.

=========================================================