Fifty new affordable apartments planned to provide “permanent supportive housing” for homeless young adults can be built, the Colorado Springs City Council decided late Tuesday night, despite concerns from residents about the potential for landslides on the site. 

Following more than seven hours of discussion by city planners, city engineers, applicants and residents, the council voted 6-3, with Councilmembers Lynette Crow-Iverson, Dave Donelson and Mike O’Malley opposed, to uphold planning staff’s administrative approval of plans to build the 50-unit Launchpad Apartments north of the intersection of West Uintah and North 19th Streets.

The development, to be built on a 1.37-acre vacant lot, is designed to house and support homeless young adults ages 18-24, city staff, developers and proponents said.

Programs at The Launchpad would be operated by The Place, a nonprofit that operates the only shelter for homeless teens in Colorado Springs. They include education and employment assistance, activities like mindfulness and yoga classes, and mental health treatment from Peak Vista Community Health Centers.

“Homelessness is a surmountable problem, but it takes projects like The Launchpad. It takes supportive services … and a safe place to live, both of those. It also takes, for the young people we’ll be working with at The Launchpad, a really well-designed home,” Shawna Kemppainen, executive director of The Place, told the council.

Those opposed to the project on Tuesday generally said they did not oppose the mission of The Place or the programs and services The Launchpad will provide. They said the project wasn’t “the right” fit for the proposed location, and city staff should not have administratively approved the project because it does not conform to various adopted city plans guiding development in the project area.

Opponents have shared concerns largely about the building’s proposed height and density, as well as the potential for landslides on the steep west side of the property.

“In my mind, this building will stick out like a sore thumb in this location,” said Scott Hiller, an appellant who is the chief of geosciences for a national engineering firm. 

Hiller also said he believed the a geological hazards report for the site prepared by CTL Thompson, an engineering consultant for developer Cohen Esrey, was incomplete and did not accurately reflect the potential for landslides on the property. Expansive soils have already caused land movement for neighbors living on the ridge above the proposed site, Hiller and residents said.

“This is the reality of this site. These are mitigating circumstances,” Hiller said. “Sometimes the best way to mitigate a landslide is to avoid it. That is, don’t build here.”

Tyra Sandy, a geologist and city engineer said the CTL Thompson report “adequately identified geologic hazards on the site and did identify mitigation measures.”

Developers primarily mitigated the potential for landslides by moving the location of the proposed building into the far northeast portion of the site to avoid as much of the slope as possible, Sandy said.

This is a developing story and this article will be updated.