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PlanCOS Vision

Forms diverse and safe neighborhoods with active gathering areas, a mix of housing types, transportation choices, and a shared sense of pride.

Key Strategies

  • Develop Neighborhood Plans
  • Update Code and Zoning
  • Create and Implement Incentives

Importance of Neighborhoods 

An essential premise of PlanCOS is that every person and place is part of a neighborhood. The strength of a neighborhood’s identity, values, and positive attributes extend beyond traditional residential areas and can benefit the overall character of the city.

Neighborhoods are fundamental to our city’s identity and development. Each of us deserves a great neighborhood. Great neighborhoods are more than simply places we live–they bring us together at schools, workspaces, parks, coffee shops, and on sidewalks. Neighborhoods create a sense of identity around a shared built environment and shared experiences on the human scale. 

PlanCOS provides a vision and framework for enhancing the quality, diversity, and safety of our neighborhoods. It speaks to each neighborhood by addressing the effects of growth and land use changes, as well as attainable housing options. When needed, it offers ideas for revitalization. Above all, PlanCOS supports and encourages pride and investment in all of our neighborhoods.

Our neighborhoods are not all the same. We recognize and celebrate their diversity, whether they are already established, changing, emerging, or not yet built. We set the city up to adapt to the impacts of future growth and changes in the market. Creating and recreating resilient neighborhoods will require attention to physical details, connectivity, and encouragement of mixed and integrated land uses. This Plan has a particular focus on nurturing and reinvesting in distinct neighborhoods where deterioration has negatively affected their vibrancy and livability.

Living in a large urban area requires the recognition that the use of our property often influences, improves, and affects our neighborhood. In Colorado Springs, homeowner and neighborhood associations of various types play a critical role in providing the first level of representation for our neighborhoods in support of their character and function. For our neighborhoods to thrive, it is essential that they be represented.

This chapter defines various types of neighborhoods, or typologies, in order to provide a more focused direction to protect, enhance, or revitalize our different types of neighborhoods. It also establishes a framework for future neighborhood-specific planning and involvement.