COLORADO SPRINGS — As places like Colorado Springs see heat advisories this summer, there's one neighborhood, in particular, feeling the impacts of this heat: southeast Colorado Springs.
Over the last few years, city council and city leaders have looked at addressing the impacts which include a grim statistic: people in southeast Colorado Springs have a lower life expectancy of 16 years.
It's because of a phenomenon known as the "urban heat island" which causes higher temperatures in areas with a lack of vegetation and more pavement, which is the case in the southeast.
"It’s a huge priority to address the urban heat island, the urban heat island effect is something that touches a lot of different issues and has a lot of impacts and so you need that concerted effort,” Daniel Besinaiz, Senior Planner for Colorado Springs said.
Last year, Colorado Springs reopened Panorama Park in the southeast part of the city. On a hot day like Monday, dozens of families came to the park to cool off, whether with the trees, canopies, or the splash pad, a favorite among kids.
It's one part of addressing the issue, adding more trees.
"I am so grateful when I come under a tree I’m like shade at last! There’s so much area that has no shade at all in southeast Colorado Springs," City Council member Yolanda Avila, who represents the southeast said.
Avila was a part of the push for Panorama Park when she was first elected in 2017, she said more needs to be done to address the impacts of the heat.
"[I was] pounding the table saying we need really nice parks in the southeast, we don’t have any, they don’t have trees, they don’t have bathrooms, our families are ready to have a park in the area,” Avila said when talking about the Panorama Park project.
Typically, southeast Colorado Springs runs six to eight degrees hotter than other parts of the city. That's according to a study from Colorado College, which has been used in past discussions at city council.
It's only one part of the issue, and trees take awhile to grow and provide the shade needed to cool areas off. Avila said there's also a push for a tree canopy in southeast springs and efforts to encourage homeowners to grow their own trees.
"It takes a while for those trees to mature to provide a level of shade that we have here [in downtown Colorado Springs],” Avila said, "the community in southeast springs has really come behind that with the trees and making sure that we have enough shade to make sure that we don’t get overheated.”
Heat is the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, making extreme temperatures a big concern.
Besinaiz said addressing the urban heat island is not something that can happen overnight and will take years of progress and various projects to tackle the challenges facing the southeast.
"In the southeast area of the city there are a lot of parking lots, that really increase the urban heat island in that specific area,” Besinaiz said.
The city does not have one specific plan to address the urban heat island, but there are multiple plans to address challenges in various neighborhoods in Colorado Springs, including the southeast.
Community members have been working to address the issues caused by the urban heat island and areproposing other solutions.
Recommendations include more cooling centers, such as libraries and community centers and making roofs more reflective on buildings to try and mitigate the impacts of heat.
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