If a master plan for Colorado Springs’ Blodgett Open Space is to be approved, it will do so amid staunch opposition.

That seemed clear after the latest Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) working committee meeting, which represented the city parks department’s closest step toward finalizing the plan that has been in the works for more than a year.

To serve as a guiding document to manage the 384 acres over the next 15-20 years, the latest update to the 87-page document was presented to the TOPS committee, ahead of a presentation to the parks board next Thursday. Both bodies are expected to vote on the plan at meetings next month.

During the TOPS presentation, Bettina Kennedy stepped out in tears. She lives close to the open space’s expanded, southern boundary, near where a new parking lot and mountain bike-specific trail system is proposed.

“There’s a lot of emotion here,” Kennedy said. “I do respect the work and some of the ideas they have, but this whole plan is infringing on the bighorn sheep. Why are we digging into every open space to create thrilling mountain bike trails for a limited community?”

The presentation showed 2.3 miles of mountain-bike only trail within the 14.2-mile system envisioned, including 10-plus miles of shared use and a hiking-only loop. The system described as “sustainable” would be accompanied by the closure of 11.3 miles of user-made trail deemed unfit for the environment — and said to impede on “wildlife corridors” that have been identified.

Concepts appear to show designated trails away from those two corridors. Critics have sounded unconvinced, including Dorothy Macnak.

In an email to The Gazette, she called the city “rare for having a resident herd of bighorn sheep” and added: “Risking that to create yet another place to recreate is short-sighted to say the least.”

David Deitemeyer, city parks’ senior landscape architect and project manager, has emphasized his team’s coordination with Colorado Parks and Wildlife regarding the habitat. The proposed plan’s “adaptive management strategy” allows the city to act on issues that may arise in the coming years, including the possibility of seasonal trail closures for the sheep.

CPW has stressed development away from a higher migratory route, above open space boundaries, Deitemeyer said. But “there is no restrictions in terms of our public access, and no need to do seasonal closures based on their guidance,” he said.

During the TOPS meeting, the adaptive management strategy also came into focus pertaining to parking lot expansions. Proposed sizes have been reduced over the course of the city surveying and hosting several public meetings, including a January “neighborhood meeting” that drew more than 100 people.

The city’s first priority would be building some portion of the so-called Quarry Trailhead, the parking lot in the direction of Pikeview Quarry to access the mountain bike trail system. The proposal calls for as many as 180 spots there eventually. That has been scaled back along with parking lots at Orchard Valley and the current trailhead along Woodmen Road, where overflow parking has occurred along the street.

TOPS committee members sounded surprised by the suggestion that neighbors would prefer roadside parking to continue over an expanded lot. “We don’t,” one in the audience could be heard saying at the TOPS presentation. (Public comment was reserved for the April 3 meeting.)

Neighbors “don’t want the influx of parking and they don’t want the addition of people,” parks Director Britt Haley said. “We anticipate at some point in the future, there will be complaints about parking in the neighborhoods, as we’ve gotten with other spaces, and then we think it would be appropriate to reach out and have another discussion with the community about that.”

If ongoing reclamation of Pikeview Quarry by the owning company is successful, city officials have also said discussion about a “world-class” bike park there could be had, as envisioned by a deal that came together in 2020. That, along with limited paragliding proposed at Blodgett, contribute to critics’ fears of a “theme park.”

Living near the open space, David Bundrick at the TOPS meeting described himself as a mountain biker and hiker excited about new opportunities. Those are critical, proponents say, to meet rising recreation interests and to spread people out across open spaces.

Bundrick thanked staff for acquiring and expanding the open space before potential homebuilders “and to preserve it,” he said. “I think we’re just wrestling with, What does that preservation look like, and what does that use look like? These are problems of a growing city.”

View of Blodgett Peak from the open space on Colorado Springs’ northwest side. A master plan envisions new recreation and conservation efforts across the city’s expanded land. Photo courtesy City of Colorado Springs