Okay.

Good morning.

Welcome to the City of Car Springs Works Session Meeting for Monday, February 9th, 2026.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Bailey.

Excused.

Councilmember Crow Iverson.

Here.

Councilmember Donaldson.

Here.

Councilmember Gold.

Here I am.

Councilmember Henjam.

Present.

Councilmember Williams.

Councilmember Linewever.

Here.

Councilmember Rainey.

Here.

Councilmember Resley.

Here.

A present one excused.

Are there any changes for today's agenda?

Seeing none, are there any changes for the regular meeting tomorrow?

Councilman Hingem.

Yes, thank you, Madam President.

I would like to call off, and I'm sorry I don't have the I think it's 4B D.

I would like to call that off the consent agenda.

Okay.

And I do recognize that simply to set a hearing date.

Um, however, given that this council voted on a hearing date in May, I think it's important that we just make that um change public.

Thanks.

Noted.

Moving on to item 4A.

Will the clerk please read item 4A into the record?

Consent calendar.

Apparently, I'm not sure which day it is.

It's Monday.

No, and it's the work session, not regular.

Um, City Council Work Session meeting minutes, January 26, 2026.

Are there any changes to the minutes?

Seeing none, moving on to item 6A.

Will the clerk please read item 6A into the record?

Overview of collaboration between City Horticulture and Horticultural Arts Society.

Good morning.

Can you please make sure the green button is on so we can hear you with the mic?

There you go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Lynn Pearson with the Horticultural Arts Society.

We say Haas for short because the Horticulture Arts Society is kind of a mouthful.

Um I'm curious, Council, how many of you are familiar with our organization?

All right, good.

How many have been to the gardens?

Yay.

Glad to hear it.

When we uh first talked about doing this, one of our struggles was we didn't really know what you knew about us before we started talking about some of the things we do with Alex.

So I wanted to start out.

Do I how do I advance this?

Do I just press this button?

There is a button uh on the right of the clicker, and it's kind of worn off.

Gotcha.

I was pressing the other one.

Thank you.

Um we are a 501c3.

We were actually established in 1962 with the um Nurseryman's Association.

Thought it would be a good idea to have uh a knowledge sharing educational as well as public garden space in Colorado Springs.

So that was first developed in the early 60s.

There is a park use agreement in place with the Horticulture Arts Society and the City of Colorado Springs, originally established in the early 60s.

The one now in place goes through 2036, and we are governed by an elected board of our membership.

We whoops.

We manage three public gardens in the Monument Valley Park area.

Uh we like to call out our award-winning demonstration garden.

This is where we're neighbors with Alex, right next door to the city greenhouses.

Um this has been awarded by the Colorado Nursery Men's Association, by Plant Select, and by All America Selections.

And was the original garden that was developed and is consistent with the vision of the founders for our organization as well as with General Palmer and what he envisioned for Colorado Springs.

And I think is very consistent also with what Alex is trying and City Horticulture is trying to promote in the city of what we can grow in this region.

When I first moved to Colorado Springs, I was at Phelan's Nursery, and the guy there told me this is the hardest place you'll ever garden.

And I thought maybe he was the encouraging welcoming committee.

But it is a challenging place to walk to garden.

And as a lifelong gardener, when I moved here, I first got involved with the horticulture arts society because I had no idea how you garden here.

And when you drive around our community, you see a lot of people failing with it.

And it's because they're trying to do what they did in other areas of the country, and it doesn't work here.

And I think Alex and his team have been a phenomenal evangelist for that exact thing, and we're trying to replicate that and educate within the community as well.

This is an aerial view of the demonstration garden.

You can see the city greenhouses just to the south, and this is Mesa Road that were along.

This was taken in the wintertime, so it doesn't look super appealing.

And I know there's been talk about developing a botanic garden in Colorado Springs.

And if you Google Botanic Garden Colorado Springs, we actually come up.

I would not call us a botanic garden.

We're the closest thing Colorado Springs has to it, though, because we're only a few acres.

Botanic gardens are generally much larger, but we follow many of the principles that a botanic garden would.

We have within this area, it's difficult to see it all from this aerial photo, a children's garden that has gates that were fabricated with concrete couch as well as house volunteers.

We have a vegetable garden and paths throughout with shade gardens.

We're in the process of developing a crevice and native garden again to try and demonstrate that educational aspect and very much following what City Horticulture is trying to do throughout the community.

The heritage gardens a little bit more formal.

Again, this is an aerial view taken in the winter time.

This is just south of the old Van Briggle building and north of the beautifully renovated Duck Lake area.

City horticulture did a phenomenal job developing that and giving it a nice continuity into the heritage garden with the plantings that have been done there.

We've also seen greatly increased activity since the Pikes Peak Greenway Trail was paved in that area, as well as the duck lake work is done.

We get much more flow through our gardens now.

What you see kind of in the middle of that circle is an American elm that I think kind of cool.

We believe this was planted in the early 1900s as part of the original development that General Palmer did in Monument Valley Park.

And it is on the historic trees for Colorado Springs.

Well, we have a question from a comment from Councilman Hingem.

I think they're doing some things with the pads, and I actually don't have to.

Okay, because I have four people signed up.

Something happening with the pads.

They rebooted the server, which knocked me offline and all you guys offline, so they're re-logging everybody back in.

Okay, Lynn, I'm sorry about that.

I just quite names come up, and we frequently have questions, so we'll just hold them to the end.

Okay.

Thank you.

And don't hesitate to jump in, please.

We love questions.

This elm tree actually has been adopted by Save a Tree to do the Karen and loving of it.

Um it's a very important area.

And if you drive by the gardens, many times you will see a lot of activities taking place under that tree.

Um we have arbors and a gazebo in this area that was uh welding was done by Pikes Peak State College.

We're trying to highlight these things because we want to show not only some of the collaboration and partnership we have with city horticulture, but with many groups throughout the city.

Um you can see in that square area as well, there was a sculpture that we had done by Larry Tarafranca called the Lorelei that was put in place in honor and respect and remembrance adjacent to the Van Brigle building of the famous Lorelei Vase.

So we're trying to really carry a lot of history throughout this area as well.

Lastly, the Plainedum.

This was uh a newer area.

I shouldn't say newer because it actually was planted back in the time of the development of Monument Valley Park, but um newer to us maintaining it that in 1975.

Um the city asked us to work with Colorado College to also maintain this area.

It's a smaller area, it's less cultivated, it's more trees, but has some striking specimens, as in this uh lace bark pine picture that you see here.

And here are some pictures just to show some of the beauty in the gardens.

Um, the iron gates you can see there are what I talked about that was developed in our children's garden with concrete couch and our volunteers, um, the Lorali statue you can see there under the Arbor.

So what do we do?

Really, three key areas we can our efforts can be broken down into garden development design and enhancement, maintenance, and education.

These are a few of the larger projects that we have done in the development, design, and enhancement area.

And I'm not gonna go into each one unless somebody has questions around them.

We are constantly surveying the gardens for what additional work would be fitting to the gardens, appealing to the community.

And I think that some of the work we're doing here, especially with our latest project in the native and crevice garden, again is very consistent with what City Horticultural is doing in trying to promote the use of natives in our area.

A lot of people have a perception that natives are kind of ugly fields that aren't very attractive, and they can really be very beautiful, and we're trying to get the community to see that.

And the other key thing for our area is also these are low water.

Maintenance is a huge part of what we do.

Tree, shrub, plant additions, and replacements.

This is would be adding to the garden, addressing failing plants or stolen plants.

Yes, we do have people come to the gardens and just take what they want.

So we're always replacing those.

This used to be handled by city forestry due to challenges and resources within the city.

We have taken that over.

We've contracted with Save a Tree on our budget to do that with the oversight and approval of city forestry to handle that.

We've taken on more of the path work, for example.

We just replaced a lot of breeze in the past throughout the garden.

Eric and the team at parks helped us by dumping all the breeze that we bought because we don't have that big equipment that they do.

And then we spread it and raked it into place with our volunteers and a group from Citiser.

So again, looking to connect into the community in as many ways as we can.

Education.

This was a core pillar, both of our original founder's vision.

And I think too, even General Palmer and what he was trying to bring to our community in gardens.

So I just put up here some examples of some of the lectures that we have this year.

And Alex usually does a lecture for us every January, and he sells out instantly.

So very popular.

And I think it's because people are really buying into these principles of what works in our region and not trying to do things that you can grow on the East Coast where you have a lot of water.

We produce 11 newsletters a year, again with an education perspective on it, promoting our lectures as well as how to grow things in our region.

We promoted in our newsletter when City Horticulture did a sale of plants at the end of the season to help them drive folks to their sale as well.

We have about 1,200 subscribers, and this is the key way we get information out into the community about what we're doing.

And most of these classes are members can participate in for free or a nominal fee.

But like our hands-on classes is an example, the only thing somebody needs to bring is sweat equity to those.

And this breaks down a little bit more the different areas of membership.

We have about 400 members.

A membership gets you access, like I said, to some of our lectures at no cost or reduced costs.

In some lectures where we provide a meal, for example, there's a cost.

We have approximately 170 regular volunteers that show up in the gardens to do work or volunteer for our plant sale.

And then we have various groups that come into our gardens at different times.

Again, trying to show the connectivity we have into different areas of the community.

I mentioned before City Serve, we have Air Force group that comes and works with us, just serve rotary private industry groups, really again trying to just raise that profile.

And it's so fun to me to see the number of times we have a volunteer come into work who says, I just moved here.

And they're learning, just like why I originally connected into Haas.

So that's again a core mission for ours in education.

Donations and special projects, grants.

Donations aren't a significant part of our revenue stream, but they they are a contributing factor.

And then periodically we will do grant requests.

For example, when we did the children's garden in 2019, we submitted a grant for that development project.

By far our biggest revenue source, I already mentioned is our gigantic plant sale we do every year.

It's two weekends in May.

This is about 85% of our income, and we offer plants there that you won't find in many nurseries in the community.

We order from many different growers, and this is where we get the resources to do a lot of what we do.

And it's also become not only a fundraiser, but it's a big community tradition.

I think we'd be in big trouble if we quit doing it.

People would be very unhappy.

Collaboration is a huge part of how we do what we do.

And I want to call out specifically Eric Becker and his team at parks and the support that they provide us through picking up all of our landscape refuse, dumping mulch forests to spread.

We regularly meet with Eric and let him know projects that we have going on in the gardens, so parks is well informed from mowing and trash pickup, replacing the aged fencing that at one point along the back of our property in the demo garden that some of the unhoused were using for firewood.

So trying to eliminate those issues.

They've been a huge partner and supportive for us.

And the Rangers have been very supportive when we have had issues with the unhoused in the gardens there as well.

Alex and his crew support us with their extensive knowledge, sharing lectures, seed starting in the city greenhouses.

We work with an organization called All America Selection that gives us seeds for certain types of plants that they're promoting, including vegetables that we grow in our vegetable garden.

And Alex and his team start all those for us in the city greenhouses.

So phenomenal resource as far as that goes.

And we really couldn't do what we do without the partnership of those two groups.

So want to really thank you for that.

Some of these are on a very ongoing basis.

I mentioned Save a Tree, we have a contract with them, what's regular work, concrete couches work with us on a project basis.

Master Gardeners, we actually help them acquire some of the native plants that they wanted to plant around their building.

So different things like that.

But we again try to be connected into as many areas of the community as we can.

So how do the gardens get used?

Whether it's a stroll, I think Eric told me he likes to do a lunchtime stroll through the area.

It's beautiful walking paths in that area, but we regularly have daycare groups there.

I love seeing the Tai Chi classes under the American Elm.

Unplanar artists, you'll go through sometimes and see people with their easels set up, painting in the gardens, photography, big photography area, whether it's uh quintaneras, engagements, weddings, etc.

Um, and I think it's just a beautiful addition in the Colorado Springs Park system.

So here are some photos of people in the gardens.

Um you can see the bottom corner there with the kids sitting down, um, is actually a Colorado College class that comes.

I'm not sure exactly what class it is, but they're making notes about the plants and the leaf structures.

Um, the artists, the children are gathered around uh a planter that we have in the children's gardens studying what's going on with the plants, and um, we have an area where they can dig with worms.

So it's just phenomenal to see this level of engagement in the outdoors, something beyond just hiking in our community.

Not that that's not a good thing, too.

Bottom line, the value that we feel we bring to the city, very consistent with the get outdoors persona of our city.

Um I know the Cuss Creek plan has been a big discussion point throughout the city.

And when I look at where we sit right along the creek and the Pikes Peak Greenway, um, we really kind of fit what the vision already is for the Cause Creek plan of people engaging along the waterway.

Um we're a unique park space throughout the park system with a dollar value of what we're investing into that space, approaching a quarter million dollars a year.

Um being in the garden allows you to step away from all the stressors of life.

There's tons of research about just being in nature and what it does for your psychological viewpoints.

Umotes community.

And I just want to wrap with shared gardens, shared friendships, gardens grow communities.

And uh I hope that what we've shared with you about how we engage with different areas of both city resources and city horticultural and parks, as well as how we're drawing the community into this very unique garden space.

Um it's different from what our other city parks are.

Um, it gives people an opportunity to see what they can do in their own landscapes as well as just sit back and relax and enjoy the beauty of the area that they're in.

Um and we hope that we might be able to give uh council an annual kind of state of the gardens update and how we're doing.

Questions?

Councilman Hingum.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Lynn, thank you so much for being here today.

I really want to express my gratitude to you for so many things uh learning about all of this.

And um I just really want to highlight, I think the collaboration and the partnership that you all demonstrate and all of your members in working with the city, the financial impact is huge.

That's a huge positive impact ultimately to our for our city budget and for our city.

Um, but also the the ownership then that it creates when people are volunteering their time and um devoting to planting and teaching and um creating community, as you've said.

It's it's just so important.

And uh I'm I look forward to hearing Alex's portion of this um presentation as well, even though uh there are there's 36 seconds left on the clock, but we we want to hear from Alex as well.

Um so thank you uh very, very much for for what you do.

And uh it is one of the uh positive things about our city is that is the kinds of partnerships we have with um private and nonprofit entities to have such a beautiful city.

And I have to say that very, very many of the plants in my yard have been purchased at that um sale, so don't ever stop.

Thank you.

Well, no hard questions.

All right, thank you very much, Alex.

Morning, folks.

My name is Alex Crochet.

I'm the city horticulturist, and I'm going on five years with the city.

Okay, that should be good.

Um, so I'd like to highlight a bit of our partnership with Haas as well as what city horticulture looks like.

Um I've been here going on five years now, and tons of changes have been made to city horticulture, which is really exciting to see.

Um I'm really grateful for the leadership in Parks and Rec because ultimately they were the vector to allow this change to happen.

And we really have been doing um amazing things, not only citywide, but also statewide with our horticulture efforts.

So, of course, we work with Haas really closely.

They're our neighbors.

Um, we grow a lot of seedlings for their operations and just kind of collaborate on the sort of plant material that I can produce with them and for them.

We collaborate together a lot on volunteer days.

So oftentimes there's a lot of work to be done in the greenhouses.

And I brought my crew with me.

There's three of us who run city horticulture and then one seasonal employee that we see year to year.

So we do a ton, and we're always grateful for the help that we can get from the horticulture art society when we need extra hands in the greenhouse, which is often.

I do the annual lecture with Horticulture Arts Society, which, like they said, is very popular.

And it's really fun to be able to connect with people who are interested in learning more about what we're doing and just learn about growing in Colorado Springs because it is tricky.

We live in the desert and the high altitude.

So it does not make for an easy environment to grow in.

I work with horticulture arts society a lot.

I also work with Colorado Native Plant Society very closely and dozens of nonprofits throughout the city.

My goal and intention with horticulture is to make it accessible to people in Colorado Springs.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that with our outdoor classroom momentarily.

So here's a little bit of an overview of what we've done.

We saw over 100 volunteers in 2025 come through the greenhouses, and that's something that we intend on doing more of in the future.

I think that we're really lucky having a large growing space to host community members.

And this year we're already looking at even more numbers of volunteers coming through the greenhouse.

This is also working with schools and classrooms and just different groups who are interested.

Last October, we hosted the Governor's Convention for Tourism's Volunteer Day.

So as you all probably know, the convention happened here, and typically they have a volunteer day where people go and clean up trails or things like that.

But being October in Colorado Springs, the weather could be a little tricky.

So we decided to do an indoor event.

And in hosting that, we had dozens of municipalities come to learn from us and with us.

And ultimately, they helped us grow 3,500 shrubs from about two hours of work.

Again, we do a lot of collaboration with the Native Plant Society.

So we'll get groups of up to 75 people in the greenhouses interested in learning with us and just getting their hands in the soil.

We partnered with Jefferson County as well as the Native Plant Society to research how our growing methods work once we supply rangers and other staff with plant material to reveg open spaces and trails.

And we learned some really valuable things from that.

Ultimately, our methods are being looked at statewide for how efficient they are, how much cheaper it is to grow them, and just efficient in the sustainability world.

And ultimately, that has led to Jefferson County and a few other municipalities in the Denver area copying what our horticulture program is.

So for the first time, rather than looking to Boulder and Denver as the thought leaders in horticulture, Colorado Springs is becoming the thought leader for this kind of stuff.

And this is especially exciting as we start to look at the realities of water restrictions and things like that.

We know that the way we've changed our landscapes will allow us to have a resilient landscape that will still be beautiful, even if we have to pair water back in the future.

We've got a coming partnership with Lisa Pace and the Colorado Springs Utilities, which is a huge deal.

The utilities will be funding this project and we'll be housing the plant material in our greenhouses.

And this plant material will ultimately be given to homeowners for free to reduce uh turf grass in their yards to 200 or of 250 acres of turf grass to gardens.

Um the utilities will be funding that, um, and we'll be focusing especially on the southeast part of the city to start to get more waterwise landscapes in those areas.

Um but ultimately we're looking to grow this program to increase the collaboration between myself and the utilities, as well as getting more homeowners plant material because it's expensive and hard to come across this plant material.

Um, and the utilities has given us a way to uh produce plant material for the local homeowners in Colorado Springs.

Traditionally, the City Horticulture Department grew about 60,000 annuals a year.

An annual flower is something that's typically tropical.

You'll plant it in the ground and remove it once it freezes.

So it's very laborious.

They also take a lot more fertilizer and inputs to maintain them and make them look beautiful.

Um I started, we began to reduce the amount of annuals growing and switching to the native plants because the native plants take a lot less work.

You put them in the ground one time, and now that plant is flourishing.

Um, so this last or this past year we grew 15,000 annuals rather than 60,000, and then 15,000 natives and then about 3,000 shrubs.

And then 15,000 natives and then about 3,000 shrubs.

We're also really excited because we've got a new software system that will be able to track exactly how much money we're actually making for the city.

Because it is so inexpensive for us to produce this plant material and we're using our waste to compost and build our soil.

It costs us about $2.87 to produce a one gallon.

And typically that would be a $20 plant from a wholesale.

So we are saving so much money by growing this plant material in-house.

Last year we converted 35 annual flower beds in the northeast side of the city to native and perennial beds, and we'll be continuing that project.

So all of the flower beds that were in the SIMDs are slowly turning to natives, which is going to allow us to have those dynamic landscapes and just put less city input into maintaining those landscapes.

So we're going to shoot for about 50 total between last year and this year for art conversions.

And then we were recently featured in a Rocky Mountain PBS article that was really great.

It was super cool to hear how much water turf to native conversions are saving the city.

And just get more information out to the public about what we're doing because I really want the greenhouses to be a space where people can come and learn with us and just get to enjoy the beauty that is growing the really awesome palette of native plants that we have in Colorado Springs.

Last year, for the first time, we had a plant fundraiser because we had excess plants.

Our plant fundraiser raised about $24,000.

And that money was then put into our gift trust and used to build an outdoor classroom as well as do some pretty major renovations in the greenhouse.

So now we've got even more space to bring people to the greenhouses and do classes and just community engagement in general.

It's really important to me that we can get people into the greenhouses with free programming because I always call gardening a rich man's sport.

If any of you guys have gone to a nursery and seen how expensive it is to put plants in your yard, it's very daunting for people who are lower income.

And with this plant fundraiser, we were able to price plants very low at a donation price that we offered.

But some people took plants for free, and some people gave $100 for two plants.

But ultimately, $24,000 was raised, about 3,000 plants were distributed, and everything was a surplus for us.

So it was a nice way for us to get plants to the community.

And $24,000 is nothing to balk at.

So there are the poles for the outdoor classroom.

We just hung the shade sales outside recently.

And this space is massive.

So it really is going to allow us to engage with more people.

Any of you who have been in the greenhouses know it's kind of skinny and hard to hear in there.

So now we have the opportunity to have a larger space to work with people.

And eventually there will be benches and seeding, and we'll be able to do all sorts of programming in the outdoor classroom.

So I'm thrilled about that.

I'm really excited that we had the support from the management at parks, and I'm really hoping to get a lot of people into the greenhouses.

Here's a cool aerial of just all of the plants that we overwinter every year, and then what that outdoor classroom looks like from above.

Pretty nifty.

So here are some photos of what our native gardens look like throughout the city.

You know, we put plants at parks and duck lake was or duck pond was a new landscape that we installed.

But we're also putting plant material in medians at sports complexes and things like that.

And I always kind of laugh to myself because when my brother was out playing football when I was growing up here, I would have been wanting to stare at the flowers and the medians.

So I always kind of think of the kids who don't want to be playing sports when I put these landscapes in.

But here you can see just the different variety and variation of flowers.

And our largest one, our largest garden in the city is now duck pond, but prior to that it's Memorial Parks beds.

And I would highly recommend you look at them on Pikes Peak and Union.

They're stunning, and every season they look even better.

So I'm very proud of them.

We do a good amount of land stewardship as well.

So there was a park, Frank Castello, northeast side of town, and a construction project was going to be happening there where they were going to be staging their construction supplies and materials on a hill.

So I was asked prior to the construction to go and look at the area to catalog the plants so we can revegitate the area properly post-construction and ended up finding all of these cacti that were there, and I just could not leave them.

So we dug them all, put them into pots, and now they're sitting in the greenhouses ready for reveg.

So oftentimes some of the plant material that we're actually using to put back in our open spaces and trails came from somewhere else that was destined to be torn up.

So we'll say this plant material, and now we have a detailed list of what plant material was in the area.

So we'll be ready to do a proper revegetation when the construction project has been completed.

We work really closely with the rangers and many parks groups within parks and rec.

And here is us collecting seed with the rangers at the Garden of the Gods, teaching them that we have enough seed on the plant material that's existing to collect seed and be able to reveg smaller areas as needed.

And it's really important to me that we are connecting with as many park staff as possible to give them the tools as well as the confidence to be able to do horticulture in their own areas.

The beauty of native plants is it is just easier to garden with them.

And whether you're gardening with them in a home or revegging the garden of the gods, I want to give everybody the knowledge of seed collecting because it's a dying knowledge and something that can be super beneficial both from an environmental standpoint and a cost standpoint.

So here you can see all the seed that was collected and then thrown out before a snowstorm so we can re-veg pirated trails and things like that.

Our greenhouses burned four years ago in a freak fire, and we're finally getting to the point where the greenhouses have been rebuilt.

So my team has been working super hard rebuilding these areas and rebuilding them with education in mind.

So we'll have microscopes for kids to look at seeds under the microscope.

We've built this beautiful new seed library to hold all of the seeds that we collect because most of the plant material that we're growing is coming from seeds that we're collecting either from our gardens or from various open spaces throughout the city.

And we're really excited because we're gonna have a lot more space to be able to grow plants.

So our newly constructed greenhouses will house some Haas plants.

It will house some plants for the rangers who are going to be doing cleanup at Creek Week.

So we'll be working with Fountain Creek watershed to grow plants as well.

So my goal here is to just work with any uh groups throughout the city that are doing green things and be able to provide free plant material to these people so they can do the hard work of getting this plant material planted in the ground without having to spend a ton of money doing it.

And then finally, just some of our 2026 focuses.

So data collection, like I mentioned earlier.

We want to know exactly how much money city horticulture is saving the city, and now we've got this awesome software to do it.

Community engagement is going to be really big.

Um, and I just like the term painting the city in flowers.

That's my intention here is to just make this beautiful place even more beautiful.

And we'll start with medians and we'll start with parks.

But my goal is to really fire people up about getting the proper plant material in the ground so that growing can not be something that's daunting but instead enjoyable.

Um, sustainability is always at the sort of the forefront of what we're doing with our composting.

We recycle our plastics, we collect our own seeds.

I mean, we couldn't be greener when you're talking about the green industry.

We even found out that the breeze that we use to grow the plants and the road base that we grow the plants in comes from a mine 10 miles away.

So we're really being sustainable in everything that we do.

Um and then, of course, being the thought leaders of horticulture in Colorado.

Um, we recently had a tour at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and they're now interested in our propagation methods and our peat-free soil.

So we're getting the attention of the big wigs in the horticulture world in Colorado Springs for the first time.

And it's really great because it's for a sustainable reason, and I'm really excited to share that with anybody who will listen.

Help someone hinge.

Go ahead and finish up, Alex.

The last thing I was gonna say was collaboration PRCS wide and beyond.

So great.

Well, Alex, thank you so much.

What a fabulous story that has been told this morning.

I'm looking over at our Gazette reporter and hoping that he is paying attention because this is a story, honestly, that really deserves to be told.

It has been told by Rocky Mountain PBS, but um, what you're talking about, it's it's it's so comprehensive.

It's saving, you know, the city money, which is great, but it's making it beautiful.

It's it's being sustainable, it's being good use with our water.

I learned about the uh partnership with CSU.

I did that's I did not know that prior to this morning.

So there's so much that you have presented that's really um worth celebrating, and I appreciate your innovation and your creativity and your efficiency, Alex.

And I'm excited to see those kids learning there, and it's amazing what you've done.

Oh, and one last thing I wanted to note.

Um, and and I meant to say this uh actually when Lynn was presenting, but I know that working in particular in Monument Valley Park because of the Palmer Land Deed, um, does create uh it it offers some challenges sometimes in terms of the restrictions of that deed, but the work you've done is there is it's just phenomenal.

Thank you.

I'm very proud of the work that we've done and above and beyond that.

My team is among the most elite horticulturists in the state at this point, and that is really something to celebrate.

So I hope that you all can recognize that.

Councilman Lineweber.

This is the second time I've gotten to watch this, and each time I'm just like really, really amazed.

But what I really want to do here is I want to reflect on a little bit of the history.

So Kim King is in the audience.

I was wondering if I could have her come forward and just give us like 20 years ago, we were talking about bluegrass.

So, how much of an impact?

You've seen the changes.

I just like to hear from you personally about the impact of what we've got going on here and how it's really affected the park system.

Again, like 20 years ago, I mean, it was all about bluegrass, bluegrass, bluegrass, right?

And and so what what I just want to hear from you personally, like what's been the impact of parks.

Uh good morning, Kim King, acting director for parks recreation and cultural services.

And I've also asked Eric Becker to come up because he's been very involved in terms of turf conversion.

From my perspective, I actually was involved with the initial development of the uh Adoptabed, Springs and Bloom Adoptive program when we developed it.

And I think that really was a great precursor, asking, you know, for volunteers from the community to come forward and really start helping us plant, helping us care for these beds.

And again, at that time it was truly just annuals.

Um and initially it started out where the volunteers were paying for those.

And over time we developed the greenhouses, and I think this kind of seeing this iteration and this um goal towards sustainability as we've educated ourselves and had the opportunity to educate others has been huge.

So I really think you'll over time again, the theory of water wise was not uh in our language.

And so I really want to give credit to both the horticultural group and then like I said, I'll have Eric talk about uh turf conversion, but just the ability that we've had to educate ourselves to be able to put that in play and have the community see it and experience it and embrace that has been significant over that time period.

Good morning, Council members Eric Becker, Parks Maintenance and Operations Manager.

Yeah, I I like Alex, very passionate about water conservation.

I got my my start in water conservation at utilities and in 2010, worked here for five years with parks, um, implementing turf conversions essentially and a number of other things.

So bluegrass is a great grass for uh active use areas, sports areas, but um in passive use, kind of non-functional turf areas, it it really um is not the right uh grass.

So what's happened over really the last since 2012, 13, 14 years, we've gone in and um converted a lot of the bluegrass areas to uh a more resilient um native grass.

So uh to date we've got about 40 projects that we've done, about a hundred acres of um conversion areas and combination with what Alex is doing.

It's just again is helping us set up ourselves for a more resilient landscape uh in our parks.

And as Alex mentioned, we've had lots of opportunities to showcase not just what Alex is doing, but what we're also we're doing with our native conversions.

So we um uh feel like we're in a really good place.

Um I think all of our new when you look at all of our new park designs, John Venesia Park, Panorama Park, they all reflect that kind of sustainability mindset of native plant material, very little bluegrass and a lot of uh different native grasses.

So um that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Great.

I just again I just wanted to highlight all that and and just I I just don't know how to like applaud loud enough to say good just great job.

I mean, the the whole team.

I mean it it's so valuable to our city um and this um moment of just really uh reflecting on really where we've come from where we are today.

I mean, I I mean we're we're I think we're we're like leading the country in a lot of regards because we because we have water concerns, right?

And and and the idea of planting that native grasses and native plants that grow on their own is just a great concept.

So anyway, I just wanted to really kind of emphasize that.

Thank you.

I think something that's important to know is as we know that water will be an issue in the future.

We're in a comfortable place where we can make the decisions to make those changes comfortably, or we could have waited and made those decisions uncomfortably.

Um but our leadership in the state has been making that decision early and doing it comfortably, and that's allowed us to be leaders in the state uh when it comes to how to grow these plants, what to grow, all of that sort of thing.

Thanks again.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah.

Thanks, Madam President.

Just want to add to what uh my colleagues have said, and and thank uh Lynn and you, Alex, for what you're doing uh really for the whole city and and also for a lot of citizens who aren't able to do this themselves, right?

They don't have the time or uh a lot of times that's what it is.

They don't have the time to be involved in this yet at the point in their lives which they are.

But uh the beauty which you bring to the city and to the medians to our parks, um, it it just makes us a better place uh for all of us, and that's really why Colorado Springs is here.

It's the beauty of of the Pikes Peak region, and you're just uh accentuating uh plants that uh that are they're native here and uh fit in well and things evolve.

You know, and there was a time maybe we had lots of water and and bluegrass was great.

Uh but things do evolve in today uh, you know, and technology helps too.

You're talking about using technology to monitor you know savings and also citizens can learn now online.

They can watch little videos and things on how to do some of this.

And so um it's a it's a it's really a very good thing.

It's good for you know all citizens.

It's something it's not uh political, it's not this party or that party.

It's just something that everybody appreciates the aesthetics, the beauty of what you're doing.

So a big thanks to you from city council.

Keep up the good work.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

This is excellent.

I always cringe when I go to the big box stores in spring and see the hibiscus.

Yes.

And think I want to say don't do it, but I I don't.

That's probably not the best place out of the garden.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Moving on to item six B.

Will the clerk please read item six B into the record?

High speak regional building department year and review presentation.

Good morning.

Good morning, madam chair.

Good morning, council.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Greg Dingrando, and I'm the public information officer for the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department.

Uh with me today is our is Roger Level, our building official.

So he'll be able to answer any technical questions that I can't answer for you guys.

But we become before you um every year.

We've done this before.

We always like to bring our uh numbers to you guys just to kind of give you an idea of what kind of growth is happening here in the region.

We'll go over go over our total numbers and then we'll break down into specifics of some of the big projects happening in Colorado Springs.

So some of the 2025 highlights, we had a big boom in commercial construction, new apartments more than tripled, and then we had also had more than 4100 apartments reach completion.

Single family home construction did see a drop slightly.

Uh reroof permits did drop significantly because knock on wood.

We have not had a large significant hailstorm since 2023.

And the total estimated valuation increased for the first time in three years, and that is largely because of that large increase in the apartment construction, and we will talk about that.

So here's a look um at our single family home numbers on the left.

We have it broken down um by month and then totaled up for you guys at the bottom.

Uh, you'll notice for 2025 we came in at just over 2800.

Um, so we're down slightly compared to 2024, um, but up compared to the very slow year that we had in 2023.

And then I will point out the numbers that we had in 2020 and 2021, if you guys remember, um, very, very busy years, almost unsustainable type of growth, um, over 5,000 homes permitted in those years.

So in that 2800 to 3,000 range is probably more of the realistic um some might call it the sweet spot.

New commercial numbers um on the right, obviously uh a good year, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, but 398 new commercial projects, pretty good year compared to 2024.

But again, if you look back to 2021 and 2022, um, not nearly as busy as those years.

And if you remember, those were the years we had a very, very large number of apartments permitted.

So here's a look at the breakdown of the homes.

Again, 2,811 new homes.

That's down just slightly, down 1%.

And then the breakdown of the three different types of homes.

You have detached homes, 2,347.

Town homes, 375.

Really good year for townhomes, up 37% compared to 2024.

And then the duplexes, it's 90 permits equals out to 180 units.

The breakdown by the eight jurisdictions that we serve, Colorado Springs led the way with 1,489.

It was up 2%.

El Paso County was just over 1,000, up 1%.

Monument was a little bit slow with 140 down 27%.

And then Fountain had a, I'd say they were flat, 64, just down slightly 1%.

And then Woodland Park with 15, Palmer Lake with 3%, Manitou with 2%, and then Green Mountain Falls with zero.

So here's a look at the visual.

I know this is really, really small, but all of those green triangles are going to be your detached homes.

The red triangles are going to be your brand new town homes.

The orange triangles will be your duplexes.

The purple squares will be the apartments.

There are a very few amount of pink stars on there.

We'll uh I'll show you guys that in a different map, but there are a few condos, and then there are some yellow hexagons on there.

Those are going to be your new hotels.

So obviously, this looks like a lot of homes, and it is, but we'll get into some of the homes later.

Some zoomed in looks at the different neighborhoods and show you just a little bit closer view of those.

So the breakdown for Colorado Springs, uh, single family homes again, 1,489, up 2%.

Wolf Ranch kind of led the way.

Uh very, very busy year in the Wolf Ranch area with 263 new homes.

Bainting Lewis had a very strong year as well, 250, uh, but down slightly, down 15% compared to 2024.

Skyview had a very strong year in southeastern Colorado Springs with 122.

Uh, I believe all of those are going to be town homes as well.

Perchron, it's a brand new community up north on the north side of Woodman, uh, 95 new homes going in there.

Bradley Heights, also in southeastern Colorado Springs, strong year there with 95 new homes.

Springs Ranch had 51.

The preserve at Mesa Creek on the west side of Colorado Springs with 44.

Flying Horse South with 28.

Single family estimated valuation came in at 675 million.

That's down 12%.

Uh, I will point out this is a bit unique.

The single family home number of permits went up, but the number, the valuation of the homes actually went down pretty significantly by down 12%.

And I think that is largely because we had a big increase in the town homes.

So the townhome numbers were up, so then the uh estimated valuation was down because those town homes are a little bit smaller and a little bit more um affordable.

Uh residential alterations, we came in at 34,762.

That's down 10%.

And the estimated valuation on the alterations was 259 million.

So here's a look, uh, zoomed in look at Wolf Ranch.

Again, all of those green triangles are going to be your detached homes and the red triangles are going to be your town homes.

The majority of the growth in Wolf Ranch is on the north side of the lake.

And then just to the east of the lake, you'll have that little gathering of townhomes.

And then, of course, there is still some growth happening southeast of the lake, kind of along Black Forest Road near Research Parkway.

Banning Lewis, uh, 250 new homes going in there.

Uh on the right, that's not a different area or a different neighborhood.

That's just a zoomed-in look uh at Banning Lewis, just to give you guys a closer look.

Percheron, again, this is just north of Banning Lewis on the northern side of Woodman.

Uh, this was a brand new community that popped up, mainly detached homes, but there are there are a few duplexes in that area as well, total of 95.

Southeast El Paso County.

Uh, so not all of the communities on this area are gonna be in the city limits of Colorado Springs.

In fact, the only one is going to be Bradley Heights with 95.

But a lot of those other areas are very, very close to Colorado Springs.

So I did want to include them, but they are technically uh in El Paso County.

West side of Colorado Springs.

You had the preserve at Kissing Camels that popped up in 2024, had six new homes going in there.

But the majority of the growth on the west side was in the preserve at Mesa Creek, which popped up for the first time in 2025, 44 new homes going in there.

You also have the vistas at West Mesa.

That's a group of town homes on the eastern side of Centennial.

And then there's another group of town homes just to the along Centennial as well, but on the southern portion of Fillmore.

And then a group of 16 new homes along Chestnut area, just west of I-25.

Victory Ridge, a lot of activity happening in the Victory Ridge area.

You got a lot going on in this map.

So you've got uh a grouping of detached homes, you got a grouping of townhomes.

You also have three condos.

Um so it's uh each of those condo units was permitted.

It's 20 condo units.

So three total permits for a total of 60 condos.

And then you also have one yellow hexagon that's going to be a hotel.

Uh I wasn't able to fit it onto this map, uh, but just to the west of Voyager is another hotel.

Um, so two hotels in this particular area, three hotels kind of in the inner quest total.

On the right, you'll have Flying Horse South, uh, 28 new homes going into the Flying Horse South area.

Arrow Park and Skyview.

So on the left, you'll have a look at Arrow Park.

That's going to be 23 new duplexes going in uh in the fountain area.

So it's Fountain and Arrow Plaza Drive.

Then on the right, you had a lot of growth in the Skyview area, 122 new townhomes going in at Powers and Hancock Expressway.

So here's a breakdown by neighborhood.

This is uh all of our, this is the top 10.

So this is going to include some of the El Paso County areas as well as Colorado Springs, Falcon Area led the way with 277, then Wolf Ranch, Banning Lewis, Sterling Ranch, Lorson Ranch, Skyview, Percharon, Bradley Heights, the Glen, and then Aspen Ranch in Fountain with 62.

So here is a visual look at the reroof permits.

This is what I always refer to as the big blue blob.

Um we issued 10,703 re-roof permits last year, and that's actually down very significantly, down 34% compared to 2024.

And 2024 numbers were actually down compared to 2023 when we got hit by that hailstorm in June.

Okay, so let's talk about commercial.

Uh 398 new ground-up commercial projects.

That's up 31% to really good turnaround.

And it's the first increase in commercial construction we've seen in four years.

It was largely boosted by the apartment growth that we had.

2,744 new apartment units permitted last year.

That is an increase of 227%.

Very, very big increase there.

And that was largely because of the final two months of the year.

So in the month of November, we permitted five different apartment complexes, and then in the month of December, we permitted two more very, very large ones.

So those two months alone kind of tipped the scales for us when comparing to the 2024 numbers.

One unique project that I did want to point out, it's 32 units.

It's going to be apartments, but it's a renovation of an old office building that is located on BG Road, just to the north of the Stargazers uh music venue, if you guys are familiar with that.

Um I pointed out because it's unique.

We have seen renovations of old hotels into apartments, but we don't see a lot of renovations of office space into apartments.

So I thought that was a little bit unique and wanted to include that.

In addition to the new apartments that we had permitted, we also had a lot of apartments uh finish up, reach a full certificate of occupancy open up to renters.

4,175 units were completed last year.

That is a 10% increase compared to 2024.

And it's the third year in a row that we've seen an increase.

If you look at the totals, 2023, we were just over 3,000.

2024, we were at nearly 3,800 units.

And then last year, 4100 or 4200 units coming online.

That is a lot of apartments that are coming available here in the Pikes Peak region.

I have a question from Councilman Hingum.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um, Greg, thanks for being here this morning.

Um I have a I'm glad you brought up that uh one uh conversion near uh Stargazers.

I have a vague memory of meeting with that developer, and my understanding is that that was actually a conversion to uh truly affordable housing.

Is that accurate?

Is that an affordable or is it more attainable?

Do you or do you know?

You may not know.

I don't recall that one being pegged as an attainable or an affordable from our standpoint, and we'll talk a little bit about this in the next slide when we get to the affordable apartment projects.

Um we don't it's no different for us.

Right.

Um so we review it the same way if it's affordable, if it's mid, if it's luxury.

Um, typically um the ones get flagged as affordable are new construction.

Um, since this was a renovation, um, it did not jump out to me.

I don't think it was flagged as an affordable.

It might be, but as far as my knowledge, great.

Thanks.

Um, and because of we had the large increase in the new units towards the end of the year, the number of apartment units still under construction in the Pikes Peak region actually went up.

We've actually been coming down over probably the past year because a lot of those older projects were wrapping up.

So then whenever they reach a full certificate of occupancy, they kind of come off the list of apartments under construction.

So with the new ones coming online, the the number actually started going back up.

So we are now at 4,587 apartments still under construction as of the end of 2025.

Thanks.

So here's a look uh at the apartment projects.

Um I won't go through all of them, but they are basically uh listed in order of when they were permitted last year.

Um you will notice on the left, you've kind of got a map.

A couple years ago, a lot of the apartments would have been all clustered in the downtown area.

And they're really all spread out all over the Pikes Peak region.

There's actually only one that is in the downtown area, and it's a small one.

It's right in the middle of the list.

It's the Lowell Ridge Apartments, South Nevada and Los Animos.

It's only 28 units, and it's kind of tucked in behind the uh police uh headquarters there.

Uh you'll also notice there are five listed on here that have an asterisk.

So it's gonna be your village at Homewood Point 2, the Sunrise at Shiloh Mesa, Royal Pine, Bradley Ridge, and the flats at Sand Creek.

All of those are going to be those projects that were pegged as affordable housing.

And again, we didn't determine that.

That comes to us from the city, and I simply point it out because that tends to be what people are most interested in.

I run our social media pages, and when we talk about apartments, the common comment that comes in, well, none of them are ever affordable.

Apparently, some of them are at least five of them being pegged as affordable housing projects in this area.

A couple others that I'll point out.

Um, the downtown flying horse that is located at Interquest near the Pikes Peak State College.

I believe it's called the downtown flying horse because it's a downtown feel.

It is not located downtown, it's just a downtown feel.

Um so that is the name for now.

I believe that will likely change as we get a little bit closer under construction, but for now that's what's on the plans.

And then the last two, the venture on Venatucci, uh, that is El Paso County, and then the Maverick at Monument.

Obviously, that is monument.

All of the other projects are located in the city limits of Colorado Springs.

The Bradley Ridge project in particular, um, that is, as you guys know, uh extra unique.

It has health care, I'm sorry, child care um attached to that project.

Um, that is unique, something we don't always see with apartment projects getting permitted.

So some of the other notable commercial projects uh that were permitted last year.

You had the American Furniture Warehouse Project, 45 million dollar project on the east side.

That one's going to be located near Dublin and Tut.

The new giraffe exhibit happening at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

That's a super unique and very exciting project.

25 million dollar project there.

We had five new hotels permitted last year, which is uh a little bit more than we normally see.

And each year, I'd say we normally average one to two hotels a year.

So to have five in one year certainly stood out to me.

Total of 650 rooms, and the largest one being the after Sunset Hotel and Resort, that's over 200 rooms, 22 million dollar project that is located up near the Ford Amphitheater area.

El Pamar Conference Center, 19 million.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

I do have a question for Greg about the uh giraffe exhibit.

Greg, you think the developers really stuck their neck out on that one?

I'm not really sure what to say to that.

Councilman Donaldson, thank you.

That's all.

The El Pamar Conference Center, uh, unique project happening near the Broadmoor.

This is a uh $19 million project.

There will be some demo involved in that one, but that'll be a very large conference center that'll be coming online.

The Jenkins Middle School expansion, as you guys know, that uh school had some structural issues.

Part of that school had to be taken down.

This expansion will basically be putting back uh what was lost at that school.

And then the Broadcom AI lab, uh this was a large 11.5 million dollar project happening over near Red Lake Brewery.

Councilman Hingem.

Thanks.

Greg, can you just say more about the El Pamar Conference Center, where it's located and who it's serving?

And uh I just said this is the first time hearing of that.

So it's my understanding, it's kind of on the backside of the Broadmoor as you're heading up towards the zoo.

Um, there's a Catholic church back there, I think, or Catholic school, and then it's just to the I guess it would be to the south of that.

Yep.

So it is it on the Penrose property or because the Penrose property is behind the Catholic piece.

So I mean, I'm uh I'm just trying to you get you don't know exactly okay.

Thank you.

Here you go.

Kevin to the rescue.

Again, I'm I'm really interested in this, and and so I'm kind of curious.

Yeah, the uh Kevin Walker, City Planning Director.

Um we we approved a plan to remodel that property that was immediately behind the Penrose Center.

Um, and so I think that's what this is.

Okay, so it's like there's the parking lot, and then it's right behind.

Yeah, and they'll and they'll be integrating the parking lot and everything as they go forward.

Thank you, Kim.

Any other quote?

Okay.

Uh next up is the restaurants.

Uh, this is always a big talker, particularly online, but we have a lot of new restaurants coming to the area.

El Pollo Loco, uh, that was a renovation project of an old KFC on Fillmore that is open, up and running.

The Pizza Ranch, uh, this is a also a renovation of an existing project in the Austin Bluffs and Academy area.

Uh Texas Day Brazil, that is a new construction project happening uh right out front of Ford Amphitheater.

You can see it from I-25.

The Guthrie's Golden Fried Chicken.

Uh, this is down south near South Nevada.

Um, I wasn't super familiar with this one, to be honest, but it's uh I'm told it's popular in uh Alabama and Georgia and very similar to a Raising Canes type of place.

Uh the Brit, uh this isn't new.

This was just a uh move into a new location.

Uh this is now located just to the south of Switchback Stadium in the old what we refer to as the City Gate um apartments, also known as the Epicenter, the experience at the Epicenter, I believe.

Um that's where the new Brit is.

It is open up and running.

And then Roth Sea and Stake, that is also up and running.

That is basically connected onto the Ford Amphitheater, kind of on the back side near the sound wall.

So some of the projects that finished up last year, the large Integrus project in the Rock Reman area.

If you guys remember, probably 2023, this was the 115 million dollar project that was permitted.

That is now done.

The apartments down the Hunter Apartments downtown, those are complete.

Two King Supers projects, one in Flying Horse, one in the Fountain Area, both of those are now open.

The Colorado Springs Airport had a number of renovation projects going, as you guys know, particularly the international terminal.

Uh Southwest Airlines started flying to Mexico last year, so a customs area had to be built to accommodate that type of travel.

That is now done.

And then Colorado Springs Fire Department has a brand new fire station, Station 24.

That's located up in the Innerquest area.

Estimated valuation for all construction, 3.7 billion, and that is up 8% compared to 2024.

So a pretty substantial bump, and that is largely boosted by those apartments.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

I know uh specific to this presentation, and I would understand if it's not in here, but is there any documentation anywhere that you are tracking about the number of jobs that were brought to Colorado Springs based on all of these uh potential commercial and construction projects?

That's a hard one for us to answer.

We really don't know the the amount of jobs that would come if we just kind of look at the permit numbers.

Um, probably a better question for some of the builders um in town, but I don't think we would be able to answer that.

Madam President, I might add uh Shauna Lippert is in the back of the room.

I don't want to put her on the spot, Shauna.

But you might be able to answer ballpark number of jobs that have been created as a result of some of the larger um employment centers that have been brought to town.

I think that's the question.

Yeah, and again, sorry to put you on the spot, but I thought if anybody in the room had those numbers at the top of your head, it would be you.

Sure.

Um so Shauna Lippert, uh City's economic development manager.

Um I don't have the exact numbers, especially for Integrists, but I can look them up really quick and come back up in a few minutes with those numbers um for Integrus and any of the other ones that you might be inquiring about.

Yeah, I mean, not no pressure right now, but I'm very curious on some of the numbers that we've been brought bringing into the city.

So if that's something that you can provide to council uh even after this work session, I would I would have greatly appreciated it.

Yep, we can start working on that.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Okay, so some of the commercial projects specifically for Colorado Springs, um, outside of the ones that I already mentioned.

Uh you guys came in at 845 new commercial projects, and that includes all of the subs.

Uh indoor storage facility, there were a number of them, but this is I just listed one of the large largest ones, and it's a 16 million dollar projects uh over on the west side near Centennial and Fillmore.

You have the National Museum of World War II Aviation Expansion, and it's a uh $9 billion project, and that's actually the image that you see on the right.

Uh large retail building next to Shields, that's a six million dollar project.

Palmer High School renovation and addition.

Uh this is uh didn't I didn't total up the dollar amount because there's a lot of permits.

Uh this is uh didn't I didn't total up the dollar amount because there's a lot of permits, so they're all separate buildings and whatnot, but there's a lot of activity happening at Palmer High School.

Doherty High School has a new field house, four million dollar project there.

UC Health North Edition, they are adding a new cancer center.

It's a 3.4 million dollar project.

The learning experience daycare, $2 million project.

That's uh on the west side of town uh as well, Centennial and Fillmore.

And then condos, as I mentioned earlier, there are 60 units, and there were also four units in monument.

So for a total of 64 units, it doesn't sound like a lot, but that is actually the most uh amount of condos we've seen since 2007.

Commercial estimated valuation for Colorado Springs, 428 million, and that is up 14%.

Commercial alterations, $6,973, down slightly, down 5%.

Um some of the large alteration projects included the airport modernization.

That's an $8 million project, and then the early connections child care.

That is moving into the old conservatory downtown, and that is a $4 million project.

Some of our plan review numbers, uh, we came in at $2,672.

We were down 7% on new plans coming in.

Residential alterations, we were down 5%.

New commercial and multifam plans, we were down just slightly down three.

Commercial alterations also down, and then the total plans, we were at $11,629.

That's down 6% compared to 2024.

Next up is our inspection numbers.

We did a grand total of 266,077 inspections last year.

That was down 10%, and that is largely because of the big reduction in those re-roof permits.

We ended the year with 55 inspectors working hard out in the field.

The department averages just over a thousand inspections every day, and each one of our inspectors are doing somewhere around 20 to 21 inspections each day.

We are still offering same-day inspections.

We are one of the only building departments in the state that offers same-day inspections, something that we're very, very proud of.

That is something on everything except for roofing and elevator.

So here is a look at our public GIS uh mapping tool.

Um, my beautiful green triangles that I always like to share with you guys, are not open to the public.

Those are static.

Um, but the red dots are.

It's just a personal thing.

I like beautiful green triangles, but uh red dots are awesome as well.

So if you go to our GIS mapping tool, you're able to get in there and actually see where a lot of the permit activity is happening.

You'll notice off to the left, there are a number of filters.

You can set it specifically to Colorado Springs if you don't want to look at the El Paso County or the Monument uh permit activity.

You can also set a number of layers.

Um, what you're looking at there is the Colorado Springs district layers on there, so you can actually look it up if you guys wanted to to see okay, what happened what activity is happening in my specific district.

Um, you could do that um as well.

And again, this is available for free on our website at PPRBD.org.

You guys have seen this before, um, but it hasn't changed, so we're gonna keep on letting you know that we have the lowest fees in the entire state of Colorado, something we are very, very proud of.

And if you look at some of our friends up to the north, if you make that comparison, I will go out on a limb and say it's probably not even close.

Last slide I have for you guys, I promise it's the last one.

Uh, it is our classes.

We have a number of classes coming up.

We have a homeowner permitting class coming up this Thursday.

I think I have eight to ten slots still available.

Uh, this class is basically for anybody that's wanting to do a DI DIY project on their own home.

We're not gonna show you how to build things, it's not a builder class, but we will show you how to work with us, how to pull those permits, what you need to pull a homeowner permit, um, how to submit plans, how to request inspections, that sort of thing.

We also have a residential realtor class coming up on February 18th.

Our next contractor 101 class will be coming up on March 4th, and the contractor 101 class, that one is regular.

We offer that on the first Wednesday of each month.

And then a commercial property class, uh, that is going to be mainly for commercial brokers, but also for um entrepreneurs.

Anyone that's looking to start a move into a new brick and mortar, we want to make sure that they're moving into the right place.

Um, and that class will help them greatly with that.

Um, anybody can sign up for these classes, all of them are free.

You can sign up at PPRBD.org slash education.

And that's all I have for you.

I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have.

And the boss boss is here, our regional building official Roger is here as well.

Councilman Line Weber.

Yes, I want to um first say that um I had to get my HVAC done at my commercial building.

And your inspector came out and he was awesome.

It was great.

Then I had a hot water heater at home.

Your inspector came out, he was great.

So you have a great team of inspectors, they did a really good job.

So you have a great team of inspectors, they did a really good job, and I just want to say, you know, good job.

Um the next thing is, you know, for I need some help in that um our citizens are concerned about growth.

And I think it's because they feel it, okay?

And and they feel it on the roads.

They feel it with the traffic.

And so when we're thinking about growth, particularly when we get all this commercial growth, and we can kind of estimate what's kind of happening in the future.

What I want to try to understand more is are we putting homes close to those commercial activities?

Like, is it it is there a balance?

I'm trying to decide those, because when we go and make land decisions, I think that's an important concept to kind of have in mind is are we providing the right kind of housing in the right areas where commercial growth is happening, or where is the commercial, where's the commercial activity right now, and do we have the right type of homes there?

This could be a really key area where you could really help me.

And I saw the GIS component, but you know, that's like you you gotta have to be a magician sometimes to get that kind of pull out the right stuff.

But can you see the kind of area?

I don't know how to say, like these are the hot spots for commercial growth and happening, and these are where our residential growth, and I think if we actually looked at that, we would see a lot of growth happening in the northeast right now.

But our commercial activity is kind of happening in other places.

And that kind of brings me to the question that we're gonna put more cars on the roads and people are gonna feel that growth.

So do you see what I'm kind of trying to ask?

Like, how can you help me know that?

So when it comes to making land decisions, and I'm trying to decide if this is a good thing or bad, you know, I just need that kind of feedback.

Is there a way to produce some kind of information?

Counselor Kevin Walker, uh city planning director.

Um, I don't think I can point to a spot where you can get up to date information like that, but that is certainly something that the planning department has uh the ability to uh sort of uh map the growth of of those areas in our GIS tool using their data uh and and our own data, uh and we could put together some information like that.

You can see where I'm kind of getting at, because we're looking at the airport right now, and um I wrote an op-ed about it.

I mean, we're looking at you know, 30 to 40,000 due jobs at the airport.

Well, do we have close-by housing to support that?

I don't think so.

Yeah, I saw the op-ed.

So I'm that's yeah, and then that's long term.

I mean, we're looking in the future, obviously, right?

So the those are clearly uh long-range planning types of issues that obviously involve the county and the city and you know, growth patterns, commercial following residential.

So sometimes there's a uh uh an imbalance of uh rooftops before commercial comes uh and those sorts of things.

So we can chat about that um in a variety of different ways.

Yeah, I just don't want again, I don't want to see doubling the traffic on Mark Sheffield and um powers, for example, you know, and just unless the road can handle it.

Right.

Well, how wide can you go, right?

I mean, I don't think that I mean there's comes to some point where a four-lane road is just not appropriate, but anyway, um I think that that's where it gets back to our job.

I think our job is to plan well and um to really anticipate where the commercial growth, which you guys have the numbers, I mean, you know what's gonna happen.

And then are we balancing the right type of residential also?

And and the other component, because we've we just saw a report, thank you, Amy.

Uh, 27,000 um, you know, we're we're short, 27,000 housing houses, right?

And I just heard you say you said earlier that the sweet spot was between, you know, where we are now, 28 and 3,000.

Well, that doesn't get us to 27,000 shortfall, right?

Um we almost kind of need some of those 5,000 events to happen to get us up where we need to be.

I mean, how do we but then it's also it's different types.

There's there's different like there's different nuance in that of particular types of building that we need to get.

Yeah, I'll I'll say, you know, perhaps I misspoke calling it the sweet spot.

I guess I would call it the average.

Um that that's typically roughly where we're at, and Roger will be able to speak to that.

Okay, yes.

Uh Roger Lovell Regional Building.

Yeah, that's probably more the median or more the average over the over the course of years.

Um we have had, you know, the 5,000 numbers.

Uh there's at least two peaks in the last 20 years where we've been close to that 5,000 or at that 5,000 number.

Um but yeah, now I think the one of the most interesting things though this year is the permit numbers did go up, as Greg Greg pointed out, but the valuation also came down.

So the town homes influenced that, but I think there's also a little bit more of a trend to some of the, hopefully maybe some more of the entry-level homes as well.

Well, I would uh and that's what I would anticipate is more of that.

But even more, you know, when we look at entry-level homes and stuff like that, trying to get those closer to the commercial centers.

I mean, that's I mean, that's what good planning is.

And although we can't really control developers, um, we still have to make decisions on land use, and um, we want to provide opportunities that kind of grow things in the right places.

Absolutely.

And and as you know, we're not involved in the land use piece of it.

Um, you know, I I think our our GIS mapping tool is a good way to see at least what's going on right now.

Um, but that's what's already that's already happened, essentially.

Right.

Um, we don't have a crystal ball to be able to see in the future and know that this area is going to be popular and and and whatnot.

But uh yeah, it's it is tricky to figure out what's happening where.

Well, uh my last comment is that is to reiterate you guys are doing a great job and and you you are keeping number you know dollars down.

I know a lot of communities in Colorado charge a lot more for their development.

And and the result of that is actually that Colorado Springs is still growing.

A lot of Colorado is not growing.

You know, they're they're doing the opposite.

And um, and so I think it's because of some of the programs and and the ease of building that you guys have done a really good job with that.

So I want to thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Lineweber, one other question or comment that I'll make on the public GIS mapping tool.

Um, one of the filters that you can um select on there is specifically for commercial.

Um you can look at everything, you can look at single family, but you can also look at new commercial, and there's also a tab for plans.

So the plans would be our best shot at a crystal ball.

Um so you can look at those plans to see what might be coming.

Um typically plans once they get close, um, they will permit, um, but there's no guarantees.

So we have in some cases you'll see a plan submitted, but it never permits it, it never goes anywhere.

But those plans might be a good place for you to go to kind of again get a visual of what might be coming in the future.

Thank you.

Looks like that's it.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

Moving on to staff appointee reports item 7A.

Will the clerk please read item 7A into the record?

Agenda planner review.

Does anyone have any questions or changes to the upcoming gender agenda planner?

Seeing none for the record, there are no changes to the agenda planner.

Moving on to item 8A.

Will the clerk please read item 8A into the record?

A resolution approving the 2026 annual action plan for the use of federal block grant funds.

Good morning, Amy.

Um and provided through the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Great.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, Amy Cox, Chief Housing and Homelessness Response Officer.

So I'm going to introduce this item.

And um let's see if I can get this to go.

There we go.

I'm going to introduce this item, provide a brief background, then my colleague Barb Van Hoy will walk through the anticipated resources, the goals and the objectives for the use of these funds, the proposed allocations, and then we'll have time to take questions.

This plan does require city council approval, so we will be coming back to you in two weeks to request um approval.

The annual action plan is the city's application to the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development for the use of approximately five million dollars in federal pro federal funds that are intended to benefit low and moderate income residents.

These funds include the community development block grant, which we know is CDBG, home investment partnerships program, which is home, and the emergency solutions grant.

CDBG supports a range of community development activities.

We use these funds for housing rehabilitation, uh programs that help seniors remain in their homes.

We've invested in public facilities like the Colorado Springs Senior Center and their early connections learning center.

Um we invest in public services, including homelessness services, homelessness prevention, and shelter operations.

Home funds are generally used or only used, I should say, for housing development and tenant-based rental assistance.

We invest these funds in deeply affordable housing development for very low-income residents.

The emergency solutions grant is specific to homelessness response, and for 2026, these funds support outreach tied to the clean and safe program, downtown, and investments in the homeless management information system, which is the comprehensive data system that improves our ability to collect data, define the problem, and address homelessness effectively.

I want to be clear that these funds do not represent the full scope of the housing and homelessness investments made by the city.

The city leverages and much of this out of our department, private activity bonds, partnerships, and the work of multiple departments to address these issues.

Actually, I'm gonna go back.

This draft plan was approved by the community development advisory committee, which is a mayor-appointed body that advises on community development priorities.

Council President Crow Iverson, uh Councilmember Gold serve on that committee, and Councilmembers Henjum and Lion Weber are regular participants.

Thank you.

One piece of feedback we received from that committee was that the number of people projected to be served appears to be low.

So as you as my colleague Barb goes through the slides, um note that the numbers look low, but again, I want to emphasize that this plan only reflects the HUD funded activities included this in this application.

It is not indicative of the city's broader housing and homelessness response.

That's a requirement of the annual action plan.

And also complicating this picture a little bit is that there are caps on certain programs.

So for example, not more than 15% of CDBG funds can be used for public services.

Not more than 60% of the emergency solutions grant can be used for outreach or shelter.

And there are caps then also on administration and planning.

So how we use our our resources to address key priorities is really a little bit of a game of Tetris.

Um we look forward to continuing discussions with city council throughout this year, really coming to you with more frequency to uh have you understand our overall strategy, investments, and desired outcomes, and of course the progress we are making.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Barb Van Way to walk through the details of the plan.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members.

Barb Van Hoy, Housing and Homelessness Response Department.

Um, I'm gonna start with the anticipated resources.

This is what we expect to receive from HUD.

As it turned out last week, the um Congress passed their budget, which is what we always have to wait for.

Uh this chart basically shows you the amounts per grant.

So about three million dollars in community development block grant or CDBG, 1.5 million home investment partnerships program, and 261,000 in emergency solutions grant.

Please note that the home and CDBG amounts here include program income, and those are basically payments on loans that we receive from past loans, and we put those right back into the programs, and those are an estimated amount.

Uh these amounts um are always dependent on Congress passing the budget.

Last year they sent us um on a roller coaster, and this year um we know that it will basically be level funding based on Congress's budget.

HUD has 60 days to um provide us with our actual allocations.

At that time, the dollar amounts that are in this plan will be adjusted on a pro-rata basis to match those um allocations exactly, but it'll be very close.

Questions about that.

So these are the priorities that kind of guide the plan.

We have a question from Councilman Rainey.

Councilmember.

Thank you, Madam President.

Sorry for that delay there.

Um I do have a question about the estimated 4.00.

Uh, once again, for clarity and understanding, that funding is federal dollars, correct?

That's right.

Is there any implications or is there anything at the state level that implicate those dollars?

Um not that we have uh learned.

So, with a lot of the changes that have been happening with federal priorities, those have been um taken into account as we've created this plan.

Um, as you know, things can always change, but um, unless there's anything else Amy can think of, no.

Okay, thank you.

But we hope to get more money from the state as well for our priorities.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thanks, Madam President.

Um, how does this compare to 25?

It's actually exactly the same.

Same.

Yeah.

And that's the same as 24.

Yep.

Typically over many years, these have been very stable, although over the long term, the amounts have been going down.

They are in called entitlement grants because we are an entitlement community, which means since we uh qualify, as long as we follow all the rules, we are entitled to a particular you know percentage or amount based on a formula every year, but that's only after Congress passes the budget and they sort of set that baseline amount.

And the entitlement is based on population.

So it's based on population, it's based on a combination of like percentage of um population that is at different um uh income levels, I think, maybe another there's probably more that I don't know.

Um but it's it's a formula.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, so these are the priorities, and you might recall these were established in our five-year plan that council approved last year.

So 2026 is the second of the five-year plan.

And the chart summarizes those broad priorities and the types of activities that we can include in each, partly based on that plan.

So number one is develop and preserve affordable housing.

Number two is providing supportive services and homelessness response, then public facilities, a kind of expansion and improvement, and then the planning and administration.

Barb, what are those middle missing middle incentives?

Say it again, please.

Under affordable housing, you have missing middle incentives.

What are those?

So there are uh some ways that we can direct it's it's a little bit more um less of specific dollars that are pinned to that, but how we kind of use all the different funds and when organizations come to us, developers come to us and say, you know, hey, we want to build this that you know, perhaps your funds are um can support um we're able to um, for example, m a more specific example is um Katie Sunderland in putting together what those incentives are for the fee rebate programs.

Um those kinds of things are examples of how we can incentivize missing middle.

Um, and also with the whole makeup of Prop 123 funds, how we kind of support with technical assistance.

Um did I think that's an accurate.

Like that premise 123 was for affordable housing, that's different in my mind than missing middle.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

Yes.

Um it is, but we recognize that missing metal is part of what our community needs and does help to support the populations that these grants um are intended to support.

And so it's probably more in the strategy of how we utilize the funds than being able to specifically say we are going to fund this work.

Uh the or the developing that kind of um housing.

So it's not an incentive to a individual that like the missing middle to me isn't affordable housing and it's not um attainable housing, it's the missing middle.

So it's not duplexes drive boxes.

A less uh interest loan, it's nothing, it's not extra money towards a loan, it's not an incentive, it's just a tool.

I I just I it's missing middle is very different to me in my mind.

I think this um so we don't have a specific program outlined for missing middle housing at this point.

But we our funds can are primarily to be used for people earning 80% of the area median income or less.

So that sometimes that does involve missing middle housing.

And it we want to talk in terms of I think you're uh we're looking at things like duplexes, four plexes, right?

That kind of missing middle housing.

We can do things like land acquisition, we can do pre-development costs, we can do a variety of things when those projects come to us.

That makes more sense.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions on this slide?

And this is kind of broad.

Okay, so this funds allocation chart basically drills down into more detail about how the different grant funds and the subgrant funds are applied to each of the priorities.

So the $2.7 million allocated to housing includes CDBG housing funds, three different types of home grant funds.

The CHDO, sometimes you'll hear us say CHOTO.

It stands for community housing development organization, which is a HUD-defined type of development organization.

And TBRA stands for tenant-based rental assistance.

So those are all kind of subfunds that were allocating toward affordable housing.

The 695,000 allocated to supportive services and homelessness response.

Those come from CDBG Public Services.

Those are among the capped statutorily capped funds and the emergency solutions grant funds.

The facilities allocation is all from CDBG public facilities funds, and the planning and administration funds are those amounts that are limited by statute for each of the grants shown in that fourth column.

Excuse me.

Outcomes.

So that includes 30 single family homes, mostly very low-income seniors and people with disabilities, and then 60 multifamily homes.

The six homes added that are shown here are part of two affordable housing developments that will add 133 housing units that we expect to lease up during the program year, which is why we can count them.

And then the 13 households estimated to receive rental assistance is based on the program guidelines for the tenant-based rental assistance program.

For comparison, housing solutions team for the city has been supporting this year around 1,800 units of affordable housing in different ways.

So these are just the ones we can count with these HUD funds this year.

And then also regarding rental assistance, we anticipate utilizing other federal funds for rental assistance that we hope will bring that number assisted closer to 100 households.

Under supportive services, that 3,000 people estimated to be assisted with housing stability and resiliency services, as well as emergency shelter.

This is a less specific estimate based on previously funded activities, those that we anticipate potentially funding, but they have not all been selected and defined yet this year.

Very similar with the public facilities numbers.

That 2,000 is, you know, a generalized number based on previous projects and that we have not yet identified for these funds.

And then the planning administration, although I really like to think that all of the outcomes in the plan really are made possible because of the planning administration that we do.

It also encompasses things like implementing the housing or the homelessness response action plan.

A lot of the work funded that our staff do is included in that, ensuring that funds are well managed, that we are measuring performance and reporting being transparent to the public and providing opportunities for citizen participation and education.

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Going back to the affordable housing and the rental assistance.

Uh not to go into the trenches with elongated list, but can you provide a few examples of what qualifications does someone have to meet to get that rental assistance?

Amy knows more about the program, so I will let her.

Yeah, this is a um, you know, this is where some of this HUD stuff I I think gets really confusing because it's tenant-based rental assistance versus project-based rental assistance.

That's why we call it TBRA.

Um, it is not just rental assistance if you're behind on your rent that you need, you know, you need a month of support.

These are for people who are either experiencing or at uh imminent risk of homelessness.

Um and in the past, we have worked with Catholic charities, we have worked with Silver Key, the Colorado Springs Housing Authority.

This is rental assistance that could be provided for up to two years to help provide that support and allow people time to transition to permanent uh non-subsidized housing.

So it's not just um, you know, a lot of faith communities, and there are some organizations that if you're behind on your rent, you can come and get uh you know some support.

That's not what this is.

It looks more like a shorter term housing voucher.

Um and it doesn't necessarily cover the full rent.

It it depends on the uh the household's needs and may just cover a portion, and again, it can cover for up to two years.

Yeah.

Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you, Amy.

Okay, any questions on this one before we're moving right along.

Um Councilman Line Weber.

That's that.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

So I I guess that begs the question, um, Amy, is it enough?

Well, um, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, no, it's a bit of a trick question, right?

Well, it is, but it is what we got.

Um, I hear what you're saying.

We we have 8,000 people roughly that are homeless is some of the guests, right?

And of uh and a large part of that is this group that is kind of what we can call people that we can divert or or keep them from going into the system, right?

Is that what this can be used for?

And is are are we be able to are we able to meet the need?

Uh, not with these dollars alone for sure.

And I think um uh Barb did um allude to there we have other we have another pot of funding that um that we can access to support uh that rental assistance.

You know, one of the challenges that we thought we were going to face was the elimination of support or the reduction, I should say, in support for permanent supportive housing.

So we have people who are in um are in housing and receiving supportive services, and this is permanent in that they have a lease and that they have an ongoing subsidy.

Um there was there was some threat that that the percentage of funds available for permanent supportive housing would be reduced significantly, which would put about 80 households on at risk of losing their housing.

And so we were looking internally as part of our planning process to see if these are funds that we could use to transition folks and then help give them another two years so we could find a pathway out for them.

It might be connection to a housing choice voucher, it might be uh if if they're able to find employment, et cetera.

Um no, it's not enough.

I mean, we have a wait list of I believe about 3,000 people for housing choice vouchers, and those are capped as well.

So that's what a lot of people know is Section 8.

Um so there's a there's a lot of need for rental assistance.

We will um I think when we presented the housing needs assessment, and as we uh pursue the housing action plan, we're gonna look at some of that because we have a lot of folks in our community who are uh cost burdened with housing, which puts people at risk.

So well, it just begs the question because I mean we're gonna we're gonna be talking about you know people camping in cars and stuff like that because they're put into tough situations.

Um but this is certainly one piece that could help a lot of those people.

Um but so you're telling us this is a solution, and I'm trying to weigh, is it enough of a solution?

Like we I from what you're saying is that we're still 3,000 short, is what I just heard you say.

Do you want to like clarify that?

I mean, there is a waiting list.

There are waiting lists for housing.

So, you know, there a Gray Shale recently reported that they have a waiting list of about 1,400 people for units that are for folks at 40% of the area median income or less.

We know we have folks uh about 3,000 people on a waiting list for housing choice vouchers.

Um we hear um anecdotally from organizations that provide rental assistance that the requests are coming in more frequently and they're seeing a a lot more need.

So yeah, there I I think this is part of a an overall housing strategy.

We're not gonna solve it with tenant-based rental assistance alone and just providing ongoing subsidies.

And um, you know, uh Councilman Lineweber and I have a lot of different conversations on this topic.

And you're right, there are a lot of people who need different levels of assistance.

They may not need tenant-based rental assistance for two years, they may need rapid rehousing, they may need prevention services before they actually get to that that place where they're um they become homeless.

So I there are a variety of tools, and our ability to have a more expansive toolbox to be able to meet those needs is very important.

Well, lastly, you're just trying to kind of bring more perspective to this.

Um, this is cheap dollars because the rescue mission estimates that an average homeless person costs the city about $50,000 a year.

That's hard dollars.

You know, when you talk about folks that are cycling through emergency rooms, the jail, and all sorts of things that happen.

And all every department in our city is connected to homelessness.

So if we can any dollars spent in this area is like this is like cheap cheap.

Right?

This is like this is where we want to really get them early.

Right.

Right?

Yeah, I mean, the evidence suggests that, you know, uh providing housing to people is a lot less expensive.

Providing housing or housing support, I should say, to people is a lot less expensive than um serving them on the streets or in shelters.

That's um absolutely correct.

Uh, you know, we also want to look at other outcomes, right?

We want to see people have improved health, um, especially with mental health and substance use um disorders.

We want to see people have better employment outcomes, right?

So um help people achieve sort of that that what I believe to be their naturally productive state, right?

Getting them good jobs so that they can do this on their, you know, pay for the rent themselves over time.

Um so we want to, there's a lot of outcomes we're aiming for.

Um and this plan is just these are this is one tool that we have to address some of that.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm also thinking of Tetris.

Like we have to find the space that the funds will fit in as well with and all of that.

Um this slide basically provides a pie chart visually of um how we're allocating those different funds.

So you can see 57% of the funds uh is kind of in the housing bucket, although the supportive services and homelessness response, those funds really are helping to um they address housing as well, just in the um more difficult uh part of that continuum.

Um the public facilities is about 13, and that planning administration um is the 16% um average of what the statutory um limits are for all of that.

And um this action plan, although it is directed at the HUD funds, we also include in the narrative a lot of information about what our other key objectives are.

And these include this year, as you know, developing a comprehensive housing action plan based on that housing needs assessment.

We're really focused on improving the homelessness response system so that people are not just being um you know given some services here and there, but it's focused on effectively um increasing exits to stable housing.

Um also, as many of you know, the Pikespeak Continuum of Care is in the process of a transition of the lead agency.

We are committed to helping to support that this year and also assisting housing providers to meet our communities.

Proposition 123 um goal of building 500 or 758 affordable housing units annually, which will keep our community um eligible for those funds into the future.

And then community participation um is also a statutory requirement for these funds, but it's also a best practice.

So we follow the citizen participation plan, which we updated last year and council approved.

We conduct extensive consultations with partner agencies.

We held two public hearings before drafting this plan to get input.

We then um made the plan available for a 30-day public comment period, and then we held a final public hearing to present the draft plan and receive input.

Uh and then as Amy mentioned, the community development advisory committee also reviewed the plan and recommends it for adoption.

And with that, I will open up for any final questions.

Councilman Donaldson.

Yeah, thank you, uh Madam President.

Barb, can you just go back a few slides to where you have like the general categories?

What am I pointing at?

Oh, there we go.

Um, do you mean this one or someone with the money?

Yeah.

Um I wouldn't want this to go more than say three to five minutes, but can you just give some practical examples of these uh these categories and what they mean in plain English where citizens would understand, okay, I I see what that money gets spent on.

Yes.

So C D BG housing as um the CDBG grant in general is the most flexible.

We allocate this particular amount.

I think it's 45% to housing, and that is the pot of money that helps to rehabilitate and modify um single-family homes for low-income um homeowners.

And that's done on an individual homeowner basis.

So they're applying to have their home they are very low income.

They may own a home but they may also be on very low Social Security or something and their water heater went out and they can't get up their stairs anymore.

So we contract with um a nonprofit that goes in, puts in a lift you know brings in new water heaters, that sort of thing.

Much cheaper to keep people in their homes and rehabilitate than try to build new ones.

So that's home ownership and then on the rental side for example we're working with Grescio to rehabilitate some of their older and deteriorating units.

So that's housing with community development block grant.

The home we have home choto and home non-choto it's just a type of organization that we have to spend a particular percentage on but those are really development they're developing housing.

So a community housing development organization for example would be GRESIO because they meet the qualifications they're going to build new homes we can use those funds for that and then non-CHOTO they are you know they don't qualify as that kind of nonprofit but they are building the kind of housing that we can fund and so those a lot of times you know $160,000 for example non Toto we are funding little bits of individual units which is why we can count six this year out of 133 because you know we have to say well our home funds really made those units possible as part of the capital stack.

And then again Amy talked about the TBRA so that's what those are and then in public services and emergency solutions grant again public services CDBG is very flexible except no more than 15% of CDBG can be funded for um services.

So public services can include things like child care services or housing navigation services, some of the client services for people who are really struggling and they need help with you know housing navigation we are pairing that also with a lot of the homelessness services or both prevention and folks who are just on the cusp and then emergency solutions grant is a little bit more specifically tailored to street outreach emergency shelter HMIS we have really increased the percentage that we fund for HMIS which is that homeless management information systems because we understand that knowing what the system is doing like where people are entering what's what are the most successful exits will help us to invest our limited dollars.

Could I ask but in all these cases your office is really the middleman between the federal government and these NGOs who are um providing these services.

That's exactly right it's really they apply they they draw up an application with you or we know them.

That is very true but a big part of what we do is ensure that we're following all the federal regulations that Congress said you can only use this money for these kind of people for this kind of work so a lot of what we do is make sure that yeah the funds are just going to what they're supposed to go to and are these competitive multiple organizations apply for it?

Sometimes yes sometimes no there are some organizations that we know who are capable of doing the work and doing it well and they're the only ones who do it so we select them and we give them the funds.

And when we have you know identified very specific priorities and we know the organizations in the community that are able to do the work and able to report federal government standards sometimes we just select them.

Is there a a body which reviews your selections or would that be us if we were to say hey show us the uh the list of who's receiving the funding break broken out by dollar amount so we can see who we're who are given so we do um put together um internal um application review committees and they'll include folks from the city also folks from um agencies that do similar work obviously not the same ones who are applying for those funds um and we do that internally um to make those selections based on the um yeah so we don't bring those to city council for um approval does the citizen group you mentioned earlier which couple of council members are on um do they review it sometimes we invite them we always invite them to be reviewers but it's not a standard usually well you know we've uh last year we did not do the competitive applications partly because so much was up in the air this year um as those funds came really late and um the uh city priorities are basically narrowing the options for how we're gonna utilize those funds to meet the city priorities so we may not do that this year um but essentially we always make sure that we're including community development advisory committee especially because

So usually well, you know, we've uh last year we did not do the competitive applications, partly because so much was up in the air this year as those funds came really late, and um the uh city priorities are basically narrowing the options for how we're gonna utilize those funds to meet the city priorities.

So we may not do that this year.

Um, but essentially we always make sure that we're including community development advisory committee, especially because they are one of our best um kind of interim, you know, without doing a public hearing.

Um, you know, citizen uh um review.

So I think we we do that, but not necessarily to a city.

Okay.

I would just say, like at uh PPACG when uh the agency on aging um receives applications for it's kind of a similar process, maybe for transportation for elderly to different appointments that goes to uh we see that uh and approve it.

Um so it's just something for council to think about.

Do we want to be part of actually seeing uh what's happening and just being aware in more detail than this because this is very, very high level.

But I've kind of thank you for answering that question.

If you just want to continue with the next couple of uh columns and then I don't I don't want to hold this up for too long, but I appreciate what you're explaining.

Absolutely.

Um, public facilities uh, for example, Early Connections Learning Center, the senior center.

In years past, we've helped to pay for accessibility modifications on the community centers, um, even you know, lights on streets and low-income neighborhoods, those sort of things, and then um the administration really is staff.

Okay, thank you.

Welcome.

Anything else?

Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

We'll be back with uh for a vote in a couple weeks.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Moving on to item 8B.

Will the clerk please read item 8B into the record?

A resolution of the City of Colorado Springs approving a limited second amendment to the amended and restated service plans for Bradley Heights Metro Districts 1, 2, and 3.

Good morning, Alison.

Good morning.

Uh for the record, Alison Stalker, senior planner at the land use review division.

So this morning, I'm just providing a little update from the presentation that Kevin gave about a month ago on the Bradley Heights Metro Districts numbers one through three.

So this was originally presented about a month ago.

Uh since that time, the district representatives have requested an additional um kind of revision to the service plan.

So we are just coming back to just kind of add on to that before we take this to a final hearing.

Nope.

Okay.

So as mentioned, this is a second, the second limited amendment request for this service plan.

Previously, you would have heard about the additional maintenance request for alleyways within the project.

Since then, we've also added on some language regarding general landscaping improvements as well as parks and recreation and open space within the district.

So to kind of remind us where we are, this is southwest of the intersection of Bradley Road and Mark Shuffle.

This is within district four.

And then on screen you can see kind of the um area within the districts.

So it's still very much in progress, but as you heard from PPRBD today, they are working on getting a lot of permits at the moment.

So at the previous uh presentation, you would have heard about the second paragraph on this slide.

So that additional maintenance request for the private internal alleyways.

The language that is being added that we're kind of focusing on highlighting today is the bold language in the first paragraph.

So you'll see landscaping is being added as well as trails, open space, and parks.

So this is just kind of to make sure that the district has all of the possible um improvements that they need to be able to maintain and take care of are listed in exhibit D because otherwise they cannot actually actively work on maintaining those things.

So as you heard before, these are the alleys to be maintained.

They are set aside in the final plat for the property as being maintained by Bradley Heights.

So updating the service plan is really just kind of making sure all of the dots come together.

And then for today's update, um, the Bradley Heights concept plan as well as the development plans, all showed that parks open space and trails were a part of the development plan.

So the update to exhibit D is yet again just kind of making sure that the district has the power to take care of all of the things that they need to be able to take care of.

And then all of the supporting items are mostly the same.

I think the only thing I added on to this packet today was the concept plan for your review as well as the updated service plan and updated exhibit D.

So that is basically the extent of today's update.

Um and if there are no questions or concerns, this can go on consent at the next available uh regular session.

Okay, you've got you've got to do that.

Can I just ask my question?

This is the one that came to us before and it had the alleyways, and I asked the question about the alleyways.

Is it what else is changed on it?

Is anything else changed?

So um the only thing is just adding language in the exhibit D of the service plan saying that the district is allowed to maintain parks in open space.

So it's already parks and open space that was already planned.

It just wasn't included in the service plan that that was a part of their maintenance obligations.

But no change to uh uh mill levy fees, any of that stuff.

Nope, just the exhibit D language.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, you can put it on concealed.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8C.

Will the clerk please read item 8C into the record?

A resolution approving the instruments of Tessamy Plaza Metropolitan District Limited Tax General Obligation Bond Series 2026 and an aggregate amount not to exceed 4,225,243 for properties located northeast of Powers Boulevard and Dublin Boulevard.

Good morning, council.

Uh Drew Fox, Planner 2, City of Uh Cowboys Springs Planning Department.

Okay, this presentation today is to introduce the Tuscany Plaza Metro District uh debt issuance request and to uh set the hearing date for resolution on February 24th, 2026.

Uh the Tuscany Plaza Metro District is requesting a debt issuance uh in the amount of 4,225,243 to reimburse the developer Izzy LLC for the installation of public infrastructure uh within the Tuscany Plaza commercial development.

Uh the Metro District District will not be exceeding their maximum uh allowable debt, which is uh six million.

Uh the Tuscany Plaza Metro District is located uh northeast of Powers and Dublin Boulevard uh in district number six.

Here's a uh closer look at uh the location.

Uh it's solely again, it's solely a commercial district with existing development northeast of Wolf Ridge Road and Tut Boulevard.

Uh the remaining area is uh subject that is subject to this metro district is undeveloped.

Uh regional building department mentioned earlier the American furniture warehouse uh that is actually to be a part of this Metro District.

Uh the district was approved for creation by city council in 2009 for the purposes of planning, constructing, and financing public improvements for the Tuscany Plaza uh development.

The district service plan was approved for a maximum of 50 mils uh for debt services and a maximum of 10 mils for operational services, total of 60 mills to be taxed for the commercial property owners uh of the district.

The maximum, again, the maximum approved debt is uh six million dollars to date, and uh no debt has been issued since its creation.

Uh here you can see an area uh um an image that uh shows the installations by the developer.

Uh this includes sidewalks, street gutters, trench work, excavation, landscaping, other various public improvements.

Uh this is a breakdown of the expenditures um by the uh metro district for the installation of these public improvements.

Uh the uh total amount and um the remaining financial obligations covered by this debt issuance is to uh because here you see three million eight hundred and forty-five thousand in the total amount was four million and some change.

So the additional is to cover uh qualifying interest rates owed to the developer, cost of issuance and uh other incidentals.

I have a question from Councilman Hinchum.

Uh thank you, Madam President.

So can you uh help me understand the difference of categorization of stormwater improvements and flood surface detention improvements?

Those all seem like stormwater to me.

So what would be the purpose in breaking those out?

Um well, I don't know the specifics around those improvements uh and how they differ, but I would think that stormwater improvements.

I don't know.

Those might be more requirements by stormwater engineering where the flood service detention improvements may be not exactly certain to have a difference there.

Looks like Kevin might have an answer.

Kevin Walker, planning director.

Um I think those are the difference between public improvements and private improvements.

So private improvements are allowed also to be funded so long as they serve the entire district in a public purpose.

The public improvements would probably be the ones that are sent actually and um dedicated to the city.

So public would be what stormwater requires, flood surface and detention would be the same.

That's right.

That'd be more like you know, it will improve the overall, but it's more their determination of how they want to use those funds.

Yeah, that's right.

Where there are two, there are two kind of categories for stormwater.

One is private improvements that are used to uh, you know, like the detention ponds.

But those are required.

They are required, but they're not public, they aren't dedicated to the city.

There are dedicated the in the public streets, there are pipes, culverts, collection facilities that are actually dedicated to the city, and that's the difference.

Okay.

Thank you.

I understand.

Appreciate the clarification.

Okay, thank you.

Uh on this slide, you can see an image of those uh those improvements that have been done by the developer.

Um again, sidewalks, street gutter, uh, surface improvements, stormwater improvements.

Uh with your packet, uh, includes supporting materials such as the current service plan, uh, the resolution, the letter of intent, boundary and vicinity map, draft district loan resolutions, and financial plan and projections.

If the council isn't having any questions, this item is recommended for consent.

Councilman Reedy.

Thank you, Madam President.

Uh just want to clarify the request that you're making today is for actions that have already transpired.

And the reason why I bring that up because with the bill of American furniture warehouse being a part of that Tuscany uh district, that probably is gonna come with some additional costs later on as they continue to build out uh a couple of areas within that district.

That none of that is captured here.

Yeah.

So what what is the issuance today is to cover improvements that have already been done.

And then yeah, when American Furniture Warehouse begins to uh actually develop their site, the development.

What's they're under they're doing at right now?

That's why I'm asking that question is to make sure that nothing that they are currently doing is captured in this request.

When you say nothing they're currently doing, so a lot of these were public improvements.

Um are you are you discussing uh are you questioning the improvements done on the American Furniture Warehouse site?

Yes, correct.

Which is connected to some of the photos that you did mention.

I want to make sure that a lot of those improvements are in advance of American furniture's development to support their installation and gear them up for for their more privatized development.

I saw you were getting ready to get up.

You have anything.

Kevin Walker, uh planning director, I th I think uh Drew's got it right.

Uh these are for improvements that are already been completed.

And so they'll be uh basically reimbursing the developer for those improvements.

Right.

That's what I want to clarify.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I don't see any other questions.

And um, can I get thumbs up on a consent?

Okay.

Thank you.

Moving on to item 8D.

Will the clerk please read item 8D into the record?

8D resolution authorizing the disposal of surplus city property to Project Tree.

Good morning, Troy.

Good morning, Councilmember uh Troy Stover, Director of Uh Peak Innovation Park uh Development.

All right, the item before you today is an authorization to dispose of surplus city property within the airport property.

This project is a project known as Tree.

It is a family-owned business based in Colorado Springs, and they specialize in food manufacturing and distribution.

User-driven development bringing kind of a diversity of industry to peak innovation in our community, which is important, I think, as we move forward with development and peak.

It's a fee fee simple transaction of 13 acres.

The first phase is to construct a 45,000 square foot uh food processing and distribution facility.

There is room on the site for an expansion in a second phase uh part of the project.

The initial uh capital investment is around 12 million dollars.

There it goes.

The site is just located uh for those of you that have been out in peak innovations.

It's just uh located just north of um free to lay facility or south of the rapid deployment center for Fort Carson.

The purchase price is greater than or equal to fair market value uh based on an appraisal done uh by real estate services.

Uh this project and the negotiations is in compliance with the existing master developer agreement and the real estate manual uh of the city.

Uh closing is scheduled for July 27th, 2026.

We do anticipate we'll probably beat this schedule, and it'll be earlier than that.

Umstruction will commence in uh spring of 27.

FAA land release is still in the approval process, and I anticipate an approval from the FAA formally this week.

I have received verbal approval already on this site.

Uh our recommendation is for council to authorize the disposal of surplus city property in accordance with the city charter for project tree at the Colorado Springs Airport and specifically Peak Innovation Park.

Uh we'd like to move this to consent with your support on February 24th for regular session.

Any questions on this project?

I don't see any questions.

Can we have consent?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Moving on to item AE.

Will the clerk please read item 8e into the record?

A resolution authorizing disposal of surplus city property to Project Manitou.

All right, this project is uh known as Project Manitou, uh, and it's to authorize the disposal of land for the development of a major national bottling manufacturing covering a significant territory in the American West.

Um, this company employs 7200 employees.

Um company serves 31 million customers across 13 Western states.

Uh this again is a fee simple transaction just at about 50 acres of land, um, constructing a manufacturing facility comprising of at least two buildings and some ancillary structures of around 500,000 square feet in total.

That's a quite a large capital investment of 475 million dollars uh in capital investment and is located just to the south of the existing free-to-lay facility and will have uh visibility to the Powers Boulevard as Powers heads east-west on the southern part of our city.

Purchase price again was done through an appraisal and is greater than or equal to the fair market value in compliance with the master developer agreement and the real estate manual of the city.

Uh closing is anticipated for the end of February, which is why we are requesting to do these back to back this week.

Um the project is moving forward very rapidly and construction is planned to commence in uh middle of March.

Uh FAA land release is in process as well.

I've had uh conversations with FA and anticipate that to be released uh this week, uh possibly next week, but we do have verbal approval as well on this site.

Staff recommendations is to request from council your authorization to dispose of the surplus property in accordance with the charter for project manitou and specifically at Peak Innovation Park.

Um we request to move this to consent on tomorrow's calendar, February 10th, with your concurrence.

Any questions on this project?

Councilman Henjam.

Uh, thank you, Madam President.

Hi, Troy.

Um problems for me going on consent.

I don't have any more questions except um given that we all know we've celebrated this pretty publicly why we're still calling it project mana two.

It's just a process that we have.

We we stick with the name as we're dealing with it as it goes through development plan.

You're correct.

This has been announced.

There's been articles in the paper.

Um, but it's just a process that we have uh sticking with that until we get to construction.

Okay.

It's wire Coca-Cola.

Correct.

And we have not closed on this yet either.

Okay.

So I'd like to see that happen.

So due to the timing, this will this item will be on consent calendar tomorrow.

It'll be item for BF if we have enough support.

Okay.

Thank you all for your time.

You're welcome, Troy.

Moving on to council member reports and open discussion.

Are there any council members with reports?

Councilman Rainey.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um just wanted to highlight a couple of things that I thought were pretty uh not just interesting, but I was gonna highlight a couple of items uh for our city.

Um had the honor of hosting the executive director for the Red Cross, Phil Martinez in my office uh a couple weeks ago.

U great conversation, and one of the things that came up uh that maybe a lot of folks may not be aware of is the month of March is Red Cross Month.

So that is something that um we want to lean into.

Um, and that's across the nation, of course, that will be celebrated.

Uh with that being said, um, Mr.

Martinez will be here on February 23rd to give us an overview of his roles and responsibilities for the Red Cross in the entire region, which actually covers Pueblo and Colorado Springs.

So looking forward to that, and then uh working with the mayor's office on a joint proclamation to recognize and highlight the month of March being Red Cross month.

Uh so I wanted to make sure I highlight that.

And also I had the opportunity to speak with the uh director for spacious skies as a follow-up from our conversation on the data dashboard.

And one of the things I I want to highlight, and I can't wait to have her back, is some of the critical data points of what our citizens are really looking for uh in our city.

But I think one of the things in our briefing that was captured was the fact that some of the survey participants, depending on where they lived at in the city, had a different perspective of what they thought the city truly needed.

So that is something that she plans on going back and revamping and bringing back to council so we can have a better understanding of what some of those uh survey participants really were looking for.

And the last thing I just want to highlight the fact that uh on our defense front, uh Space Force Northern Command uh was activated uh last week.

Um, and that ceremony was at Peterson Space Force Base.

So once again, another capability coming here to uh the Pikes Peak region.

So kudos to that leadership team out there, and quite sure we're here more about uh that organization as the months and the years go by.

That's all I have.

Councilman Gold.

Thank you, Madam President.

I think an email went out to all council in regards to this Thursday.

I'm having a town hall for the Southeast Strong Community Plan.

But I also wanted to just formally uh extend that invitation myself while we're here on the dais.

Thank you.

Councilman Line Weber.

Yeah, I have a couple of things.

One is um both me and uh Dave Donaldson participated on the um wildfire mitigation um kind of uh advisory board, and um um happy to state that over uh since 2021 we've we've spent over 3.5 million dollars in fire mitigation up and down the front range, which is pretty amazing.

And um we're looking to project um this coming year around a million dollars in spending.

And those areas are gonna be including uh Shine Mountain State Park, um Ponder Heights, uh Cloud Camp Ridge, um Union Meadows, uh Blodgett Fuel Reduction Project, uh Gold Stage Road, uh two different units up on Gold Stage Road.

Actually, there's quite a bit being done up on Gold Stage right now this year and next year.

And so anyway, it's pretty exciting to see that this effort's going forward.

And I think it's really been a great collaboration between the Forest Service and the city in a way that I don't think I've really seen before.

And so very positive, positive outcomes, I think, and really protecting our city from an inevitable future uh wild wildfire.

So I wanted to kind of bring that up.

Um last Friday, um, well, actually, I think it's really more appropriate for Nancy.

Um Nancy just kind of brought up why don't I just pause and I'll tag on to Nancy.

You're you led the event on Friday.

Uh you want to speak to that?

Uh thank you, Councilmember Lineweber.

That's actually what I was gonna speak to.

Um I think there were about 40 uh or so, would you say 40 or so uh providers, someone with lived experience, people from uh DHS actually, um really a broad variety of folks who are interfacing with those who are unhoused in our community met on Friday afternoon at the very end of the week from three to five.

I want to thank you, Councilman President, um, for especially encouraging DHS to attend.

There were probably four or five people from DHS there.

That was really important.

You could tell it was I think I don't want to say the first time because who knows, but certainly the first time in a very long time that the city and providers and Department of Human Services has collaborated on being responsive to folks who we uh come across who are in urgent need of services.

So it was a very um positive uh meeting.

There were a number of there were probably three top items that came out of that um brainstorm, if you will, from all the providers.

We identified gaps and what are possible solutions, things to work work toward.

Um the number one thing pretty much from every single group, we were broken up into small groups at tables, and I think there were like six or seven tables that people felt like was really important to explore was safe parking.

So I don't know what will come of that.

It will be done not by the city, but by um individuals who want to pursue that as an option.

But I think even more importantly was the um the agreement and the appreciation of folks who are doing this work, spending some time around tables together and learning from each other about what each other's doing.

You could see people taking notes who are doing the same work in the same city and have no idea what others are doing.

So it it was um I would say a real benefit that has come out of uh out of this ordinance, and I hope we'll continue.

So that's what I have.

Thanks.

Yeah, and just to add to that, um uh uh there wasn't a lot shared that was um new information, um I would say, um, except for a couple of things.

One is um the rescue mission does provide for parking, but they prefer the people come inside to stay.

So someone who has a vehicle or whatever, I guess they have upwards of 90 spaces for people to be able to park.

And so, and they've never have exceeded or come close to exceeding that uh capability.

But they do prefer people not sleep in the car.

So um I'm not quite sure.

I tried to get him to commit to what does that mean.

We you don't prefer that they sleep in your car.

What is uh but he didn't really kind of qualify that.

I'm gonna try to pursue that a little bit more.

But um, but they they obviously I think they want people to stay inside where it's warm on a cold night.

I think that's primarily the the concern.

But they um they provide you know three meals a day and all that and do a lot of good work at the rescue mission.

So there is a place where someone can park their car, but it is preferred that they come inside.

Now, to that point, there is nowhere else in the city that we have anything like that.

Um I know that there's some organizations looking into it, but to date we don't have anything officially um in that ballpark.

So um that's all I have.

Thanks.

Okay, so if that's all of our updates, um we will um head right down to our lunch meeting after this meeting, and we are now adjourned.