COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) — Are you able to think about having extra public entry to the town’s two principal creeks, with the ability to sit comfortably alongside them and even play within the water?

That would occur within the close to future for Fountain and Monument creeks in Colorado Springs. 

A gaggle of neighborhood leaders — together with former Metropolis Councilwoman Jan Martin and former College of Colorado-Colorado Springs Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak — has spent the previous yr making a future imaginative and prescient for the creeks flowing via and close to downtown. 

Shockley-Zalabak does volunteer work for Lyda Hill Philanthropies, based by Hill, a Colorado native who later turned a rich Dallas businesswoman, overcame breast most cancers and developed and constructed the Backyard of the Gods Customer and nature heart., in keeping with the group’s web site.

“We evaluate tasks that come to us, asking for her funding,” Shockley-Zalabak mentioned. “However we additionally counsel issues which may additional our neighborhood or the state of Colorado. We’ve labored with over 85 totally different organizations and used 42 earlier plans, to tell this plan. So there’s a substantial amount of enter. We’ve built-in their considering and their ideas as a result of the earlier plans did not combine fixing the issues that our creeks have.”

The creek undertaking acquired an unspecified grant from Hill, which was used to rent a guide — the Denver-based Greenway Basis — to check the place and the way creek enhancements will be made.

Shockley-Zalaback added that such a undertaking has by no means been funded by philanthrophy.

“Most imaginative and prescient plans start with non-public funding,” she defined. “The best way we’re doing it, it permits us to get private and non-private assist in a while. It is very thrilling.”

The plan appears to be like at bettering Monument Creek from the Popcycle Bridge close to the Interstate 25 and Fontanero Road interchange, via the place it drains into Fountain Creek, to the place Fountain Creek flows south of downtown alongside I-25 and Nevada Avenue and Tejon Road.

The imaginative and prescient contains bettering stormwater capability and water high quality, offering leisure alternatives and creating areas for improvement. 

“We’re taking a look at methods to offer a constant move of water within the creeks and to deal with stormwater runoff at a number of websites alongside the creeks,” mentioned Chris Lieber, who works for NES, a planning and design agency within the metropolis that is partnering within the undertaking. “Imaging with the ability to have household tube floating within the creek. That is one of many many prospects.”

The imaginative and prescient, known as the COS Creek Plan, was usually supported by the Council throughout Monday’s work session. 

“(Mayor John Suthers) is worked up about this,” mentioned Jeff Greene, the mayor’s chief of workers informed the Council. “The mayor and the manager department are prepared and prepared to do all we will to proceed with this, and never have it’s simply an concept that sits on a shelf for a few years.”

The subsequent step is for the Council to approve turning the imaginative and prescient right into a grasp plan, which might be adopted by figuring out decide prices, funding and timetables for completion.

The creek plan is modeled after the success Denver has had with comparable tasks alongside the South Platte River over the previous 40 years.

“What occurred in Denver led to turning uncared for areas into main, in style points of interest that spurred every kind of improvement, together with residential improvement that offered inexpensive housing,” mentioned Jeff Shoemaker, govt director for Greenway. “I do not assume it can that lengthy to understand the imaginative and prescient right here as a result of we’re already forward of the sport. We’ve the curiosity in it and the desire to do it.”

Related creek improvement tasks have already been performed within the metropolis, most not too long ago on the east finish of Cheyenne Creek within the new Creekside retail improvement.

A unbroken undertaking focuses on beautification and elevated entry to the Shooks Run Creek, that flows a number of miles east of downtown.

To see your complete plan, go to: http://COSCreekPlan.org.