High hopes in Black Forest

Light blazed through the Black Forest fire station windows late Tuesday night, illuminating a warm haven from the snowy, icy mess outside.

At 11:30 p.m. two dozen people remained — talking, laughing, drinking coffee and urging each other to drive home safely.

An outsider might never have guessed such camaraderie came from two groups with drastically different views.

This was the end of the Black Forest incorporation election and it ended peacefully.

“This community is not torn,” said Leif Garrison of the Black Forest Incorporation Committee.

Voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected incorporation with a 71 percent majority. The

final tally was 959 for incorporation and 2,350 against.

The decision came after months of hard-fought campaigning.

But leaders say the divisiveness won’t linger among neighbors.

Tuesday night’s vote-counting session included workers passionate about both sides of the issue.

“Everybody worked together. We were laughing, joking,” said Pam Devereux, head of Keep Black Forest Free. “I truly believe — I want to believe — that everybody will get along. It’s for the best of the community.”

Devereux hopes that people who were friends before the incorporation issue will remain friends.

“But time will tell,” she said.

Incorporation advocates say they worry development will creep ever closer, but that’s also true of many who opposed incorporation. There’s general agreement on the problem, just not the solution.

Colorado Springs city limits have hit the Black Forest treeline, incorporation leader Eddie Bracken said. New houses will take water from slowly depleting aquifers.

“There’s going to be some changes,” he said. “The pressure is too great.”

Bracken fears the Black Forest Preservation Plan, which is scheduled to be updated in 2009, will be changed to allow homes on 2.5-acre lots instead of the 5-acre lots recommended now.

The plan was created in 1987, said Carl Schueler, manager of El Paso County’s long-range planning division. It’s too soon to tell how the document could be changed in 2009, he said.

The county will hire consultants to update the plan, but it will also solicit public input from anyone with a stake in the area — including Black Forest residents, officials from the city of Colorado Springs or developers, he said.