New open space in Colorado Springs to be envisioned at upcoming meeting

A master plan for a new, highly anticipated open space in Colorado Springs is about to start taking shape.

Any and all interested in the future development and management of Fishers Canyon Open Space are set to convene at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School. It will be the first such meeting regarding the scenic, widely untrammeled side of Cheyenne Mountain that city leadership agreed to purchase in 2021.

The steep, rugged 343 acres rise behind the Broadmoor Bluffs neighborhood, between Cheyenne Mountain State Park and Pike National Forest. The closed Fishers Canyon Open Space boasts the city parks department's highest point: a craggy precipice near 9,000 feet, surpassing Mount Muscoco in North Cheyenne Cañon Park.

Colorado Springs’ next great escape: A look at Fishers Canyon Open Space

Wednesday's meeting will have a "workshop" feel to it, said David Deitemeyer, overseeing the master plan as city parks' senior landscape architect. More feedback will be collected following an online survey that garnered more than 1,100 responses — a number Deitemeyer considered "on the higher end" compared with other department surveys.

"Being a new open space ... I just think there's a lot of interest to find out more about it and being involved in that planning for first-of-its kind public access," Deitemeyer said.

It'll be a master plan unlike one that recently gained board approvals amid neighborhood opposition: an update to the 2002 plan for Blodgett Open Space, which has been expanded with land acquisitions in recent years. Also unlike the 2020 master plan for Austin Bluffs Open Space — long-roamed property surrounding Pulpit Rock — some onlookers say Fishers Canyon planning will be different for how relatively unexplored the property has been.

"It's more of an unknown, even for the neighborhood," Jeff Davis, one of those living in Broadmoor Bluffs, previously told The Gazette.

Davis also sits on the Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) working committee that approved Fishers Canyon's $4.2 million purchase, through the sales tax-funded TOPS program. It was "a really good opportunity," TOPS committee chairman Bob Falcone said.

"For a city that is growing rapidly and faced with overcrowding, this is going to give people just another place to go," he said. "A place they've never been before; it's been locked up private property for years."

They might get something of an education at the upcoming meeting. Deitemeyer said scientific inventories have revealed the possible presence of the threatened Mexican spotted owl among other raptors, as well as the monarch butterfly.

"All of that data is providing the opportunity and constraint maps that help us in the decision-making and planning," Deitemeyer said. "That will be part of the conversation with the public, where that level of comfort is and finding that balance where public access should go so we can preserve that habitat."

That balance promises to be a theme that carries over from the recent, controversial planning for Blodgett Open Space. Other concerns were wildfire risks and parking and traffic around the neighborhood. (Fire mitigation was the city's first priority with Fishers Canyon; nearly 90 acres have reportedly been treated.)

Those concerns emerged from Fishers Canyon's first round of public surveys, Deitemeyer said. He said another "top answer" was interest in a "wilderness experience," with limited development beyond trails.

Of most interest to parks officials is the Chamberlain Trail, the long-envisioned tour spanning 26 miles across the Springs' backdrop from Blodgett Peak to Cheyenne Mountain. Fishers Canyon is seen as the trail's key southern corridor.

As in planning for open space around the peak to the north, talks around the southern end will surely regard parks department resources to manage a growing portfolio. Deitemeyer recognized "funding challenges" when it came to employing more rangers and upkeep.

Asked about that growth amid limitations, Trails and Open Space Coalition Executive Director Susan Davies said: "What's our choice? Do we want houses there? No we don't, especially when it's a piece of land like Fishers Canyon."

Deitemeyer said next week's meeting will be recorded and posted to a city webpage, coloradosprings.gov/fisherscanyon.

A second public meeting for the master plan is set for June 18, when Deitemeyer said proposals would be presented.