Protect Colorado Springs Group Claims Sprouts Project Could Harm Environment
Over the past few months, there has been an ongoing fight between a group of unnamed citizens and the developer of the new Sprouts grocery store on South Nevada Avenue. The argument roots in a new stormwater system the grocery store wants to implement underneath its parking lot.
The project’s stormwater system was initially approved by city staff and it was also approved when the proposal went in front of the city’s planning commission. However, after the project was given the green light by the planning commission, a group of citizens calling themselves “Protect Colorado Springs” filed an application to appeal the planning commission’s decision.
The appeal went in front of the planning commission and according to the city’s planning manager Ryan Tefertiller, the planning commission voted unanimously to deny the group’s appeal. The opponents, however, did not stop there.
During a city council meeting in April, Protect Colorado Springs filed another appeal to get the city council to deny the appeal of the planning commission’s decision, which would essentially halt the project until new plans are made. But during the meeting, Tefertiller recommended that the council deny the appeal since the developer has done all of the necessary work to make the project move forward. In the end, the council voted unanimously to deny the group’s second attempt at an appeal, an action that will move the project forward.
Background on the New Sprouts Grocery Store Project
The new grocery store is slated to be over 23,000 square feet and sits on a 2.7-acre plot of land on the southwestern corner of South Nevada Avenue and East Ramona Avenue. According to Jim Houk of the Kimley-Horn Law group representing the developers, the grocery store chain chose Colorado Springs as the location of their new store over a list of other cities. He said that ever since the idea of the project came about, people have been excited about it and the project has been well-received by most citizens in the area.
The main issue Protect Colorado Springs has with the project is the new stormwater system the developers have planned. The developers came up with a design to put in an underground stormwater system beneath its parking lot. This type of stormwater system has never been implemented in the past and most of the buildings in the area do not have any type of stormwater system.
According to Tefertiller, the underground stormwater system will allow the store to build a bigger parking lot than what is required by code. “While the site may be slightly over-parked as far as zoning code is concerned, staff was pretty comfortable that they have done a good job of finding that balance to meet real-world demand without creating a sea of asphalt and undo stormwater issues,” the planning manager said.
Harm to the Creek Below the Project
The group of citizens who have been fighting the Sprouts project has so far gone unnamed and they have never put their names or addresses on any of their formal complaints. The group called themselves “Protect Colorado Springs” and hired attorney Annmarie Cording with the Weiner and Cording Law Firm to represent them. According to Cording, none of the citizens wanted their names used and it was safe to say that they were a group of residents who are concerned about the environment.
Cording made a presentation to the council and said that the biggest problem the group has with the project is that there are no plans to improve Cheyenne Creek. “The point that I really want to make this afternoon is that the storage chamber for phase one (the eastern side of the project), is going to discharge directly into the creek,” Cording explained. “However, the applicant is not going to do any type of creek improvements or stream stabilization in this phase. They are putting that off to the next phase.”
She said that the group is concerned about how the creek will be affected when the water from the stormwater system increases the creek’s water flow. The group believes that the project should include some type of plan to improve the creek.
Cording told the council that the project is taking extra steps to maximize parking for the establishment without thinking about what it could do to the environment downstream. “Really what the applicant is doing here is, maximizing, maximizing, maximizing parking,” Cording said. “And that is impacting the need for this variance for an underground storm tech chamber. And that storm tech chamber outflows directly into Cheyenne Creek with no creek improvements. So, from our client’s perspective, the impacts to Cheyenne Creek are just too high and there are no consequences at this stage to counteract that.”
Developers Say the Project Follows All Legal Obligations
The attorneys representing the developers said that the creek downstream from the project is not on their property and they have no responsibility to make improvements to the creek. They said that since a stormwater system of this type has never been installed, it is hard to say how or if the creek will be negatively impacted.
The applicant’s attorneys told the council that they have taken all of the necessary legal steps to move forward with the project. They said that the citizens should put their names on the appeal and that the multiple appeals have been costly to the developers. At the end of the meeting, the council sided with the developer by denying Protect Colorado Springs’ appeal by an 8-0 vote with one council member absent.
After the council meeting was held the lawyers for Protect Colorado Springs came up with a resolution. On May 24, the lawyers from the developers and Protect Colorado Springs signed a release agreement and covenant not to sue.
In the end, Protect Colorado Springs agreed to cease its efforts to stop the development if the developers paid to have five art murals installed along the creek at Creekwalk South. The developer agreed to collaborate with the Smokebrush Foundation for Arts to install the five murals made by local artists.
Need somebody to step in and sue to stop the murals on the side of the building. I don’t like murals on the sides of buildings.
What’s left out of the article is testimony by Colorado Springs officials discussing the revised city Drainage Criteria Manual, in which concerns regarding runoff and environmental impacts are discussed at length and in an intelligent manner. The article gives the impression that these nameless individuals from Protect COS are the caring environmentalists and everyone else are just heartless money-hungry, selfish pigs. It’s just not the case. Also, it is simply NOT TRUE that such an underground stormwater system is the first of its kind. Creekwalk South has an identical system. There’s also one on the north end of town.
As for improvements to Cheyenn Creek, where was Protect COS before this Creekwalk development ever got off the ground? The creek was a complete and utter disaster, filled full of garbage. Creekwalk South has made that part of the creek look AMAZING. When the full build out of the entire urban renewal plan is complete, all of Cheyenne Creek will look just as good.
I wondered if the unnamed group of citizens were mural painters.