After hours of deliberation with stakeholders, the Colorado Springs City Council voted on Monday to deny an appeal to the Blodgett Open Space master plan but added an amendment that put the amount of new parking at the site more in the public’s hands.

Opposition to the new plan to manage the open space on the city’s northwest side came to a head at the meeting, after the 108-page plan passed both the Parks Advisory Board and the city’s Trails, Open Spaces and Parks committee.

The petition submitted in the appeal claimed that the new plan, which calls for increased parking, a new trail system shared by hikers and mountain bikers and two launch points for paragliding, was putting recreation over conservation in the 384-acre space.

Sarah Spiller, speaking for the appeal, said that the plan prioritized special interest, “active recreation,” like biking and paragliding, over less environmentally taxing activities like hiking. The plan would make 10.4 miles of shared use between hikers and bikers, 2.3 miles devoted to downhill mountain biking, and 1.5 miles for on-foot recreation only.

The appeal also claimed that the maximum amount of parking planned over a phased build would exceed all of the other local open spaces by cars per acre of land.

Half of the crowd at the meeting was also there to defend the plan, many of whom belonged to the local mountain biking community.

David Deitemeyer, the city parks department senior landscape architect, said that the plan contains two new wildlife corridors and would eliminate so-called “social trails” that have sprung up illegally in the city-owned space.

He also said that the public comment period was thorough, denying claims from the appeal that special interests governed the planning process.

“We acknowledge there are different opinions and we’re not going to make everyone happy,” he said.

City Council members deliberated several motions, including one to send the plan back to the parks advisory board to re-work the ratio of hiking to biking trails.

The final decision addressed concerns over parking at the open space, which would in the new plan start a phased build of 180 new parking spots at the “Quarry Lot” along Woodmen Road.

The amendment, which passed 5 to 2, requires a new approval process for each phase of the parking lot build out, with a public comment period, review by the parks advisory board and TOPS, and a potential appeal to the City Council.

The appeal itself was then denied 6 to 1, which approves the rest of the master plan as-is.