Banning Lewis Ranch (renting, zoning, cost)

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by toyce

what is the altitude at CS?

6000 feet or so

[reginhild]

Originally Posted by toyce

what is the altitude at CS?

6000-6500 ft.: Downtown, Garden of the Gods, South Colorado Springs, South-East Colorado Springs.

6500-7500 ft.: Briargate, North Colorado Springs, North-East Colorado Springs.

7000-7500 ft.: neighborhoods up on the edge of the mountains

[Bullitt007]

Originally Posted by CSNative

We are terribly under-taxed for our size and it's putting a major strain on infrastructure and making it difficult to attract jobs...

Hey, if you feel you're under-taxed, go right ahead and pay all you want.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by Bullitt007

Hey, if you feel you're under-taxed, go right ahead and pay all you want.

I am not sure its the amount of tax in the Springs as the lack of interest in the center of the city. If Colorado Springs would develop urban renewal areas in parts of town that are run down or struggling then you would see developers come in and fix it up with out having to use extra tax money. Then a nicer city core would attract more companies to move there etc. Then once the city starts to re develop the center of the city they will get more tax revenue without raising taxes.

Honestly Colorado Springs is a nice city, even though I am down on it at times, but they need to do more with what they have and it could be a even greater city. And that is good for Colorado.

[gunnison]

I hate the development of this land. I am a life long resident of this county. This legendary and historic property should be preserved for future generations. There is plenty of land other than this to develop. And the sprawl of the city is unsightly and destrpys all that this county once posessed. No wonder all the food products we buy cost so much whne we continue to destroy farm and ranch land.
Now the clincher, the Denver Musuem of NAtural History ranks this propert as one onf the TOP 20 Fossil sites in the WORLD. Beside the fact there is no water and the Southern Deliver System was dramatically moved last year to another site (guess they found a few atrifacts...HMMM) and the historic value. And the economy has once again spared this property from development.
I continue to hope that the City spares this from development, but that is a silm hope at best. There are 2 known graves on the property. Turn one bone up and the whole idea gets put on hold. Locals shouls contact theie reps in congress and try to persuade them to make this a NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE.

[Paul2011]

It's admirable that you feel strongly about this property. Therefore, I recommend you voluntarily pitch in to buy the remaining undeveloped part(s) of this area, and solicit others to do the same. That way, this historic property can remain undeveloped for eternity as you/others wish without unwarranted force of government on its current owners in our ostensibly free country, right?

[Josseppie]

That is the problem with the Springs, instead of coming up with answers to fix the situation the supporters of Bannen Lewis keep arguing for sprawl and the people who do not like the sprawl do not come up with viable alternatives to make you community better.

I do not think you should tell developers not to develop their land, even Pueblo has new developments like the Pueblo Springs, but you should make it more attractive for developers to develop parts of the city that need to be developed.

Until the Springs does that you can have all your studies you want, just like the new one 6280, but you will not fix your problem.

[CS-Urbanist]

I don't think it is realistic to not develop Banning Lewis Ranch. However, my recommendation would be to cluster the development into pods of higher densities (say 6-20 du's/ acre) and maintain a lot of the land as open space. It's the 1/2 acre lots - 2 acre lots that do the most damage. What are you going to do with 2 acres of land that you couldn't do with 1/4 ac. lots, besides mow a hell of a lot more. It's the greed of our western mentality that wants more land, and than we just seed it with Kentucky Blue Grass, which requires way too much water... I say build dense and preserve as much open land as possible in the process.

While they're at it, develop it in a more sustainable, non-car dependent way with walkable retail, grocery, etc... a la New Urbanism/ Smart Growth.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by CS-Urbanist

I don't think it is realistic to not develop Banning Lewis Ranch. However, my recommendation would be to cluster the development into pods of higher densities (say 6-20 du's/ acre) and maintain a lot of the land as open space. It's the 1/2 acre lots - 2 acre lots that do the most damage. What are you going to do with 2 acres of land that you couldn't do with 1/4 ac. lots, besides mow a hell of a lot more. It's the greed of our western mentality that wants more land, and than we just seed it with Kentucky Blue Grass, which requires way too much water... I say build dense and preserve as much open land as possible in the process.

While they're at it, develop it in a more sustainable, non-car dependent way with walkable retail, grocery, etc... a la New Urbanism/ Smart Growth.

That "sustainable, non-car dependent way" is one of the things we liked about the Del Webb retirement cities, where lots are small and you ride around the neighborhood in electric golf carts that you can plug in. We stayed in one while house hunting and drove the golf cart to the eatery, hobby and rec center, convenience store and all the other stuff in that small town. This is what I've love to see them do with a goodly chunk of B-L, to grab the boomers as they retire. We are FREE money for whatever city gets us, don't need jobs, schools, or much of anything since all we do is spend money that comes from elsewhere. Colorado hasn't figured that out yet, so they still beat themselves silly trying to grow industry at a time when most industry is gone or will go overseas.

[Josseppie]

I don't see how they can do that unless they want to make Nannen Lewis ranch a separate city from Colorado Springs. If they try that in the city it would just make the downtown area even more irrelevant.