There is a new political movement taking place in Colorado Springs and environs. Volunteer homeowners’ associations, previously content to wend their own way in city politics and serve only their own interests, are banding together to put broader political pressure on our City Council.

A prime example is Westside Watch, an informal association of 20 or so neighborhood associations which estimates it represents from 80,000 to 100,000 homes. It was founded a few years ago to successfully oppose a giant 400-unit apartment development off Flying W Ranch Road because of fire hazards.

Another example is Historic Neighborhoods Partnership, a combination of 10 homeowners’ associations that surround downtown Colorado Springs. It was founded in April 2021 to resist city government plans to densify the population in older neighborhoods in the central city.

Westside Watch and Historic Neighborhoods Partnership will combine forces for the first time this coming Wednesday at a regular meeting of the city Planning Commission.

They will jointly oppose a proposal by the city to allow two accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to be added to every single-family zoned residence in Colorado Springs.

An ADU is an additional house that is built on the lot of an existing house and rented to a separate family.

Westside Watch and Historic Neighborhoods Partnership will also oppose allowing the two ADUs on the lot to each be the same size as the original dwelling unit on the property.

The result would be a former single-family building lot crowded with three homes for three different families (two of the homes would be rental properties).

Backyard space for family activities such as cookouts, croquet and badminton would soon be taken over as the site for the newly allowed two ADUs.

Westside Watch and Historic Neighborhoods Partnership also charge that the “two accessory dwelling units in every backyard” proposal is being rushed through the Planning Commission and the City Council with inadequate time given for reviewing and critiquing such a complex and neighborhood-changing plan.

The two homeowners’ associations have had little more than three weeks to consider this two-ADU-per-lot plan.

They are also concerned about the impact on Colorado Springs Utilities. Since the population of neighborhoods that add multiple ADUs to multiple properties will go up, so will the demand for electricity, gas, water, and sewer and the expensive infrastructure that bring them into neighborhoods.

Key neighborhoods in the founding of Westside Watch were the Broadmoor, Cheyenne Canyon, Skyway and Mountain Shadows. Added neighborhoods included Cedar Heights, Rockrimmon and Peregrine.

But interest in joining the work of Westside Watch quickly spread to areas outside the west side of Colorado Springs. Distant neighborhoods such as the Black Forest joined up and were represented.

Dana Duggan, who lives in the Broadmoor neighborhood, is a key figure in the work of Westside Watch. She listed three subjects she believes the City Council has not paid appropriate amounts of attention: approval of the loud amphitheater that disturbed north-side neighborhoods; inadequate provision of evacuation routes from wildfires on the west side; and the proposed controversial skyscraper in downtown Colorado Springs.

Dianne Bridges, the chair of Historic Neighborhoods Partnership, lives in Historic Uptown, the quaint old neighborhood between downtown and Colorado College. She is joined by Mike Anderson of the Old North End, who serves as treasurer of Historic Neighborhoods Partnership.

Anderson is concerned that allowing two ADUs on each single-family lot will attract real estate investors, who will tear down the existing single-family home and put up a three-family apartment house for rent: a “tri-plex.”

This is not a new debate. Some urban planners love densification because it may reduce infrastructure costs and increase city revenues, among other things. It also can provide new homes for single people and young couples without children.

On the other side, as these emboldened neighborhood organizers in Westside Watch and Historic Neighborhoods Partnership attest, Colorado Springs has become an award-winning and uncommonly attractive city because of its vibrant and well-landscaped “single-family” neighborhoods.

As the pressure builds to allow denser residential patterns in Colorado Springs, expect to see more combinations of existing homeowners’ associations resisting such densification.