This large master-planned community in northeast Colorado Springs is a happening place.

A new charter school for grades 6-12 is under construction as an expansion of Banning Lewis Ranch Academy, an existing K-8 charter school in the community.

The new school is adjacent to sports fields the Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department owns. It will open in the fall of 2017 and start with a freshman class.

If voters approve a school financing measure on the November ballot, Falcon School District 49 will build another public elementary school.

The city of Colorado Springs annexed 25,000 acres of this former cattle ranch in 1988, and since then the property has gone through multiple owners and a bankruptcy in 2010.

Nor’wood Development Group of Colorado Springs now owns 18,000 acres and Denver-based Oakwood Homes owns 2,600 acres.

Development began in 2007, and more than 300 homes have been built southeast of Woodmen and Marksheffel roads. Developers include Oakwood Homes, Classic Homes and Covington Homes. In recent years, developers began negotiating new pacts with the city to grow the area.

Northtree is the first “village,” and every home is designed to fit the look and feel of the community. Home prices range from the $200,000s to the $500,000s. Each home is within a few blocks of a park, trail or open space and offers panoramic views of Pikes Peak and the Rampart Range.

Residents flock each summer to an outdoor concert series at the Banning Lewis Ranch Recreation Center. The YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region partners with Banning Lewis Ranch to manage its recreation center, which is open only to residents of the community.

Colorado Springs City Council recently approved construction of nearly 136 acres of residential development east of Marksheffel Boulevard and south of the Barnes Road extension, as well as 17.7 acres of commercial development. The development will be called Enclaves at Mountain Vista and include attached and detached single-family homes with parks, open space and a school site, and areas set aside for neighborhood commercial development.