Here is an update on recent plans by the city of Colorado Springs to allow “large” day care centers in both two-family and single-family zones. 

The city Planning Department is considering recommending that large day care centers with 16 or more children (no upper limit) be allowed as a “permitted use” in both two-family and single-family residential zones. 

A “permitted” use means that the large day care center can be located in the two-family or single-family zone without any public action by either the Planning Commission or City Council. 

Local residents will have no opportunity to protest against the proposed large day care center at a public hearing. 

Under the proposed city rules, a property owner will be able to open a large day care center in the residential zones at any place and at any time they choose. 

The Planning Department’s response to this situation is to point out that there are extensive Colorado state requirements that apply to large day care centers that will protect the interests of surrounding residential neighbors and neighborhoods. 

These state requirements include such things as setbacks. That is requiring the large day care center activities to be set back from the property line so as to establish distance between the day care center activities and the surrounding residential properties. 

The state government also requires fencing and landscaping and other techniques to reduce the noise produced by the large day care center. These state requirements also increase privacy for the neighbors.   

Another concern with large day care centers is traffic. Early in the business day and in the evening before dinner are the busiest times for picking up and dropping off children. The larger the day care center, the greater the traffic. 

This is another instance where state law rather than city law applies. The state requires that primary access to the large day care center be on wide major thoroughfares and not on narrow residential streets. 

There also was discussion of the process by which residential homes in residential zones would be turned into large day care centers.  

The Planning Department took a strong stand on this issue. A development plan must be submitted if the use of the property changes from a residential home, or homes, to a business-oriented day care center. 

There will be opportunities to further protect the two-family and single-family zoned neighborhoods at the time the development plan for the incoming large day care center is adopted. 

 Day care can be provided as an accessory use. That is the co-location of day care facilities within commercial and industrial facilities. It is having day care provided by the businesses where people are employed. 

Other forms of accessory day care are at churches or in large apartment developments (zoned R-5). There must be a minimum of three apartments (having common walls) on a single lot for an apartment development accessory day care facility to be installed.

There is general agreement that accessory day care facilities where people work, or close to where they work, should be strongly encouraged. 

On the subject of access, large day care facilities should be excluded from alley access as well as from access from exclusively residential streets. 

And on the subject of off-street parking for employees of large day care centers, the present law requiring off-street parking, with one parking space per 400 square feet of gross floor area, should be retained. 

As things stand at the present time, City Council consideration of these changes for day care facilities is scheduled for later this month. 

Rather than work against each other, the Colorado Springs City Planning Department, interest groups working for the well-being of small children, and the older established downtown neighborhoods have been talking to each other and trying to work out a plan for increasing the number of child care facilities in our community.  

That is because of a mounting child care crisis in Colorado Springs, the state and even the nation as a whole. 

Both single parents and couples searching for reliable child care encounter limited availability as well as long waiting lists and sky-high charges. 

Certain parts of the city have to deal with more crippling shortages of child care facilities than others. Southeast Colorado Springs has long been viewed as hard hit by inadequate child care services. 

The southeast side is filled with military families, Army and Air Force, who are living off-base. Many of them have young children and desperately need reasonably priced child care services.   

News columnist Bob Loevy is a retired professor of political science at Colorado College who writes about Colorado and national politics.