Side Streets ~ Neighborhood people and issues

Archive for the 'Westside' Tag

IS IT A HOME OR A HOTEL?

July 21st, 2010, 4:14 pm by

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Folks across Colorado Springs are complaining that properties in their neighborhoods are hotels masquerading as single-family homes.

I’ve heard the complaints from upscale areas like the Broadmoor and the Old North End to gated communities including  Cedar Heights and Kissing Camels.

And the complaints echo from more modest neighborhoods, too, like the Westside and Mountain Shadows.

They all ask the same question: how can it be legal to convert a single-family home  into a hotel?

Specifically they are talking about folks who rent their properties as vacation rental homes.

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Turns out dozens of people have discovered they can make serious cash — upwards of $4,000 a week at peak weeks — by renting their houses to vacationers.

Experts estimate there are 60 to 80 vacation home rental properties in the Springs. Cruise the web sites created to put renters in homes and you might think the number is far higher.

Vacation Rentals By Owner is a popular one. Another is VacationRentals.com. Folks can advertise their places and search for a house to rent on these sites and others.

Prices, according to a casual survey, seem to run in the $200 per day range.

Prices peak during Air Force Academy graduation week each spring and during popular summer months. In addition, owners can ask a premium when the Springs is host to big youth sports tournaments and festivals.

A city Vacation Home Rental Task Force was convened in the fall of 2009 but it produced nothing in terms of new rules to govern the practice as many other cities do.

 Manitou Springs, for example, requires folks who want to rent their homes on a daily or weekly basis to vacationers to apply for a conditional use permit. It goes through the planning commission and City Council. If approved, they must get a business license and pay sales and lodging taxes. Leases of 30 days or longer are exempt.

The task force did discover that many homeowners are not registered with the city or paying sales taxes, as required.

And many appear to be in violation of a city code that prohibits more than five unrelated adults from living in the same home.

Dick Anderwald, the chief city planner, said he may reconvene the task force if enough complaints surface. His planner, Larry Larsen, is researching the issue and taking complaints at llarsen@springsgov.com.

The only formal complaint this summer came from Cedar Heights where the Community Association president Lani Henneman asked about city codes. She said neighbors are upset about a house owned by Joanne Pearring being used exclusively as a vacation rental property.

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Henneman said Pearring advertises the house as “Manitou Villa” and it is available to groups of 18-20 for $400 to $500 a night or $2,000 to $3,300 a week.

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 She recently rented the house to a baseball team in town for a tournament, Henneman said.

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Pearring hung up on me when I tried to ask her about her house and business. Here’s a look from www.GoogleEarth.com.

Henneman said neighbors have complained about loud, late parties at the house. It has been blamed for traffic problems at the security gate. Guests have been seen feeding wildlife. And throwing rocks at deer.

She said Pearring, who lives in nearby Crystal Park and owns several other vacational rental houses, has “destroyed the whole purpose of a gated community” by introducing streams of strangers.

 But the homeowners association can’t do anything about it because covenants governing life in Cedar Heights never contamplated the issue.

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INDIAN HEIGHTS CASITAS: Resident solves problem

May 16th, 2010, 10:39 am by

Indian Heights Casitas is one of the “infill” projects that Colorado Springs has encouraged in recent years. Here’s a look at it:

 

In this case, developer Bill Skeele took a vacant lot on the Westside at 19th and King Streets and, around 2006, built 15 townhomes.

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 Basically, Skeele built seven duplexes and a single unit.

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It’s adjacent to a large storage complex and surrounded by older homes as well as other housing developments.

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Joyce Truitt and her daughter came along and bought side-by-side units. They were low-maintenance homes. Conveniently located in the city. And not part of a sprawling complex.

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There was just one problem. Skeele never finished the project. Truitt said he left lots of little things undone. Most important was an irrigation system for the common areas.

As a result, trees and shrubs died. Truitt said he was unresponsive to repeated calls for action. So she turned to the city. Again she became frustrtated.

Here’s a look at Indian Heights Casitas from FlashEarth:

So Truitt started calling the city’s development review folks and teh city attorney. Truitt had been married to a banker for years and knew projects like this were secured by bonds. In this case, $57,000 remained locked up until the city released it back to Skeele.

Truitt asked the city to use that money to finish the project. But she said city staff told her the money was a penalty bond meaning it would not necessarily be used to finish Indian Heights Casitas if staff decided Skeele would forfeit it.

That’s when Truitt called me.

She didn’t need to. She had done everything possible to get action on her complaint. And the city had not ignored her. In fact, the city met a week ago with Skeele and he promised to complete the project by June 1.

Truitt is not convinced. But she hopes it’s true.

Stay tuned.

Common areas at Indian Heights Casitas

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WESTSIDE IS THE BEST-DOCUMENTED SIDE

February 28th, 2010, 12:00 pm by

The Westside may be the best side. But that will get you an argument.

There are few neighborhoods in Colorado Springs, however, as well-documented for historic value than the Westside, otherwise known as Old Colorado City.

True, the Old North End is right up there, along with the Weber-Wahsatch historic area.

But imagine this: Westsiders spent $4,000 to photograph all 3,600 homes. Then dozens of volunteers spent years studying the photos, cataloguing each house, its architectural style, unique characteristics, its El Paso County Assessor’s property number and more to create a database.

Now, based on that research, the city has issued a 127-page document, the Historic Westside Design Guidelines.

 It is part history book, part architectural text and a how-to manual for anyone remodeling a house built before about 1955.

 There is page after page of photos showing how to enlarge a house and stay true to the historic nature of the neighborhood. It shows tips on reroofing historic houses. Or adding gables. Or porches. You get the idea.

Dave Hughes in a 2007 file photo.

 Kudos for the document go to Dave Hughes and Old Colorado City Historical Society .

Also, Kristine Van Wert and the Organization of Westside Neighbors.

I’ve written several Side Streets columns about the effort. Here’s a link to my first column on the subject in 2004.

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CLOSING COMMUNITY CENTERS: neighborhoods lose their souls

December 16th, 2009, 4:20 pm by

Unless a deep-pocketed benefactor steps forward, Colorado Springs’ community centers are closing in March.

It will be devastating to the immediate neighborhoods losing their community centers: Deerfield Hills, Hillside, Stratton Meadows and the Westside.

In addition, the city, as a whole, will suffer. In 2008, the city’s community centers had 237,319 visits. This year, Deerfield Hills expects to finish with 75,000 visits alone. 

hillsidecommunitycenter

Community centers are the heart and soul of their neighborhoods.

 They are places seniors get hot lunches and enjoy a variety of programs.

 They offer low-income parents an affordable option for preschool and day care services.

The centers with their rec rooms, gyms and televisions provide a place for school-age kids to stay after school, and for teens to drop in rather than roam the streets.

Below is a photo of Deerfield Hills from Google’s Street View map program. On the right is the community garden. Behind the building is the sprayground.

Deerfield Hills was built as a private clubhouse and swimming pool for the surrounding subdivision. The city bought it in the 1970s and it became Colorado Springs’ first true community center.deerfieldhillscommunitycenter

The swimming pool failed and was closed in 2003, replaced three years ago by a popular  spray ground. Here’s a look at the spray ground in a 2007 Gazette photo:

deerfieldsprayground

Want to know more about what the city is losing? There are brochures online at www.SpringsGov.com that explain all the programs.

 Here’s a link for the West Center brochure.

 Here’s a link to the brochure for the southeast centers, including Hillside and Deerfield Hills. Two others, Otis Park and Sand Creek, will close.

Click here to see the Meadows Park brochure.

It’s not too late to help. The centers are conducting fundraising drives. They are soliciting donors and partners and volunteers. To adopt a center, there is an online form available. 

Want to help? Got questions? Call Brian Kates, director at Meadows Park, at 385-7942.

meadowsparkcommunitycenter

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LIFE’S A VACATION, unless you live near a rental

November 1st, 2009, 4:26 pm by

Colorado Springs has appointed a task force to determine whether it should license, regulate and tax vacation rental homes.

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

vacationrentalwebsite

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.vacationrentalwebpage1

 

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:

1902downtownhouse

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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