This Tuesday the Manitou Springs City Council considered the demolition application for the Green Willow Motel cottages on Manitou Avenue and the donation of four undeveloped parcels of land north of Sunwater Spa.
During a June presentation to the Historic Preservation Commission, NES Landscape Architects identified a host of issues with the cottages on the property, including unlevel floors, out of plumb walls, deteriorating roof posts and an overall condition of fair-to-poor. The cottages, which have served as seasonal rentals since 1953, would be demolished to make room for four two–to-three-bedroom duplexes. The Historic Preservation Commission approved the demolition application with a 4-1 vote, and the Manitou Springs City Council unanimously approved the application.
“Although it breaks my heart to make this motion, I move that we approve the application for demolition as submitted,” said Councilor Nancy Fortuin. “It breaks my heart because it’s such a lovely property and very historic.”
“I could not find any real intrinsic value to the property,” said Chavez. “It’s really rough. It’s really steep. It’s solid granite with a lot of decomposed granite.”
Chavez noted that runoff from the parcels would be a concern should the city take responsibility for the property. “[It is the private property owner’s responsibility to maintain minor and major drainage ways that convey flows from one property through another, so we all have a piece in this,” he said. “I just wanted to point this out to the city that if, in fact, there were downstream damages associated with any runoff from those properties, there would need to be work done up there. From my perspective, it would be very difficult and very expensive work.”
Councilors John Shada and Julie Wolfe were in favor of accepting the donation.
“We went through acquiring Iron Mountain and Red Rock Open Space — none of those parcels have any parking or some of those criteria that was mentioned here,” said Shada. “In terms of the public to access them, we acquired those mainly as view corridors. We know good and well that nobody could have ever developed those up there. It seems to me we have acquired property — starting down on El Paso Boulevard all the way up behind City Hall here — parcels that we people were living in. Suddenly there were identified geologic hazards, and we actively bought them out to basically protect public safety. We have right back here [debris] that comes down on Lover’s Lane all the time from our parcels that we have to clean up. I think that’s just part of the overhead of doing business here.”
Wolfe echoed Shada’s sentiments. “I’m not aware of whether the City’s ever rejected land donation, but I don’t think we should start now,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything compelling that it’s going to cost a ton of money for us to maintain this. I don’t like the idea of farming it out to a third party, 501(c)3 or something. I’d like us to be able to hold on to this. I like the fact that it can’t be developed and use it — I guess the word was as a ‘view corridor.’ We have insurance. The City is insured for a liability of this sort. That’s why we have insurance. If we didn’t have insurance, we probably wouldn’t want to own any open space, because it can always be a boulder that comes down and causes damage or some drainage. It doesn’t sound like the drainage problem comes close to anything being insurmountable, and I see no reason to not accept it.”
The other members of Council felt it was more appropriate to have the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) provide a recommendation. “Given the information we’ve received tonight. I probably wouldn’t advocate for attaining this [property], but I think that it’s important to have OSAC weigh in before we make a decision,” said Councilor Judith Chandler.
City Council voted unanimously to send the proposed land donation to OSAC for review.