SIDE STREETS: Citizens' efforts thwart 2 Woodmen Valley projects
After sitting vacant for years, the Woodmen Center is getting new paint and carpet and awaiting its new owners, Nursing and Therapy Services of Colorado.
Blocks away, "for sale" signs offer homes on 5-acre parcels where an 80-home subdivision was planned.
Both represent victories for the Woodmen Valley Preservation Association, a neighborhood activist group that sprang up in 2007 in rustic Woodmen Valley, where homes on 5-acre lots sit amid modern subdivisions on the edge of Peregrine.
The fuss started when a developer announced plans to buy the Woodmen Center and turn it into a strip mall with a liquor store, dry cleaner and coffee shop.
The center was built in 1967 as Woodmen-Roberts Elementary School and converted to Academy School District 20 offices in 1990, serving students with special needs.
Neighbors didn't want a strip mall disrupting the valley's rural charm.
The furor escalated when another developer revealed plans to annex and subdivide 40 acres nearby.
Valley leaders emerged to sound the alarm that life was about to change. About 130 people responded.
Alan Forrester led opposition to the strip mall while Terri Schlabs organized neighbors against the subdivision/annexation proposal.
They showed what motivated neighborhoods can do when they unite behind a cause. And it helps that they got a little lucky.
In the case of the Woodmen Center, Forrester and his troops convinced the City Council to attach page after page of conditions and restrictions on the property, prompting the developer to drop the strip mall plans.
"We got it rezoned the way we wanted with sufficient restrictions to protect us," Forrester said. "It was a lot of pain and anguish. But it was worth it."
The subdivision/annexation plan died thanks to Schlabs' efforts to boost attendance at a neighborhood meeting. One of the Valley residents she recruited came to the meeting armed with a little-known piece of history that derailed the project.
"There were restrictions on several of the parcels in the 40 acres," Schlabs said. "It turns out, when the city provided water to the area 10 or 15 years ago, it required all the landowners to sign an agreement that they'd never subdivide their properties.
"Sometimes," Schlabs said. "you get lucky."
The restrictions might have gone unnoticed if she hadn't raised awareness of the project among her neighbors.
Now, the neighborhood is welcoming the nursing and therapy center, and its owners, Kathy McGee and Pam Logli, are thrilled.
"Before we approached the school district about the building we contacted the neighborhood out of respect for them and asked if they'd like us to be their neighbors," McGee said. "It's their neighborhood, and we think they should have input.
"They said they'd love it. We can't wait to move in."
They approached neighbors and showed respect? Now there's an idea.
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