The City Council on Tuesday approved divisive plans to build more than 220 apartments near Garden of the Gods Road, about three years after a previous council denied another apartment project across the street because they concluded it could make emergency evacuations more dangerous.

“To have this decision after everything we have presented to you … is deeply disappointing. … There’s a real wave of disrespect that (the people are) receiving,” Westside resident Kerri Waite told the council. She was was one of about 15 people who spoke in opposition to the Arrowswest Apartments during the development’s approximately 4-hour hearing.

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The council voted two separate times to rezone about 7 acres of land and approve development plans to build 222 apartments in seven multi-story buildings on about 9.5 acres at 4145 Arrowswest Drive, adjacent to 30th Street and Garden of the Gods Road.

Councilwoman Nancy Henjum and Councilman Dave Donelson opposed the request to rezone a portion of the property; Donelson also voted against the development plan.

Residents, many of them who survived the deadly Waldo Canyon fire that burned through the area in 2012, said Tuesday’s council vote defies the board’s 2021 finding that increasing density in this area would detrimentally affect public safety.

That board voted down a previous proposal to build up to 420 apartments and additional commercial space at 2424 Garden of the Gods Road, adjacent to the Arrowswest Apartments site. They agreed with neighbors who said new residents in the area could slow an evacuation during a wildfire. In 2022 and 2023, district and appellate courts upheld that council’s decision after the developer sued.

“When (the courts) say public safety is at risk, and when you impede the egress of the public, that’s an issue,” Bill Wysong said Tuesday. Wysong is president of the Mountain Shadows Community Association; co-founder of Westside Watch, a neighborhood organization that advocates for wildfire safety and evacuation modeling; and led the opposition against the 2424 Garden of the Gods apartments. 

Residents opposed to the Arrowswest Apartments repeated concerns that the area of 30th Street and Garden of the Gods is a traffic chokepoint and adding more residents nearby will negatively impact evacuations.

Though the Colorado Springs Fire Department established new evacuation zones that allow targeted evacuations in emergencies, many people may not get notifications to leave in time — or at all, if communications went down in an emergency, residents said.

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Evacuation zones won’t be assigned to tourists, thousands of whom come to visit nearby Garden of the Gods every year — and tourists won’t receive emergency notifications for evacuation, Westside Watch’s attorney Kat Gayle said in an interview after the hearing.

Fire Marshal Brett Lacey said he is confident first responders can evacuate everyone in an emergency; Donelson questioned the statement.

“I believe the Fire Department is going to tell us they can handle the job. I respect that. Our job as council is not to make their job harder, not to put our citizens in a situation where they are more concerned (about public safety risk) than they are today,” Donelson said.

Neighbors opposed to the project also repeated claims the Arrowswest Apartments site is subject to hillside overlay zoning that has not been accounted for in the public design or process. The question about the property’s zoning delayed the hearing by two weeks because planning staff could not immediately answer it.

Hillside overlay zoning requires attention to slopes, grading, building height and vegetation preservation, the city previously said.

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Interim Planning Director Kevin Walker said Tuesday Colorado Springs planning records show the property was previously included in the hillside overlay zoning. In 1989, however, the city changed the hillside overlay by ordinance and established new locations. The hillside overlay zoning has excluded the Arrowswest Apartments project site for 35 years because it was already graded and did not have vegetation characteristic of such zoning, Walker said.

Gayle testified a 1996 ordinance repealed and re-ordained the city’s original ordinance from 1980 that established the hillside overlay zone. 

“That’s the ordinance that governs us today,” Gayle said.

City Attorney Wynetta Massey said the 1996 ordinance Gayle referenced only amended the text of the zoning code that dealt with hillside regulations.

“It in no way, shape or form amended, repealed or changed in any way the existing zoning ordinances,” Massey said, adding that the 1989 ordinance Walker spoke about did amend the zoning on the property site and removed the hillside overlay.

Residents worried the apartment buildings would hinder the view for residents and visitors driving toward the Garden of the Gods park, which many of them called Colorado Springs’ “crown jewel.”

Laura Neumann, a representative for developer Weidner Apartment Homes, said the hillside is 130 feet above the project site and the development’s roofline is about 95 feet below the hillside, so it will not impede views.

“We believe Arrowswest Apartments are much better suited for a ‘gateway’ to our community than a commercial facility,” which is what could be built on the property if it were to remain zoned for light industrial uses, she said.

Developer representatives with Weidner Apartment Homes and about five proponents who spoke in support of the Arrowswest Apartments said the complex will provide much-needed housing on Colorado Springs’ west side for people like teachers, police, firefighters and nurses.

It is also within 1 to 2 miles from 10 major employers and could provide employees for nearby companies like Entegris, a global supplier of electronic materials that support the semiconductor and other high-tech industries, they said.

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Gayle said Tuesday neighbors are considering appealing the council’s decision with the district court.

That could be costly, she said, and a new state law requires residents to pay a local government’s attorney fees if they lose a court battle with a local government over a residential housing project of more than five units per acre. Developers who appeal similar land use decisions do not have to pay for a city’s attorney’s fees if they lose a case.

Gayle is one of two attorneys who recently filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law.