As homeowners sift through the rubble and deal with insurance claims, officials are having internal discussions about how to proceed with rebuilding Mountain Shadows.

“Those discussions are going on with city planning, regional building and Colorado Springs Together,” a new nonprofit formed to help with rebuilding, Cindy Aubrey, Mayor Steve Bach’s chief communications officer, said Tuesday.

“There are discussions going on in internal policy meetings,” she added.

City Council members say they are largely unaware of what is being discussed and hope to learn more about those plans during Wednesday’s Mayor’s Counsel meeting.

“With everything going on, I haven’t had a chance to have a lot discussions because my No. 1 focus has been rebuilding my house,” said council President Scott Hente, whose home was damaged by the Waldo Canyon fire, the most destructive in state history.

Councilman Merv Bennett said he hasn’t had an opportunity to talk to Bach but that council is prepared to work with his administration on rebuilding.

“I know what council and the mayor will do,” he said. “We will do everything we can to make this as smooth as possible to make sure that the trauma on the people affected is lessened to the maximum of our ability.”

While homeowners will make individual decisions about whether to rebuild or repair their homes, the city could have a significant role deciding whether to enact new rules about things such as fire resistant building materials and landscaping requirements.

Bennett said the city will want to move “aggressively” to give homeowners the support they need to move forward. But the city also must have a larger discussion about what “we need to do to make sure this never happens again to our community,” he said.

“This issue is going to be one that is going to be with us for a while to find the solutions, and I think that’s a good thing,” he said. “But to think we can come up with a plan that solves the problem next week, that’s not going to happen. But we can start having those discussions that will lead towards that.”

Hente said he would expect the city to look at modifying existing ordinances, including one “to create more defensible space around houses.”

“In the past, it seems like that we’ve wanted to preserve this natural beauty at the expense of maybe having things too close to the house,” he said.

Hente said he expects the city to reevaluate existing building codes in the wildland urban interface to determine whether to require more fire-resistant building materials.

“Ten years ago, the city passed an ordinance banning wood shakes, but I think there’s other things we can look at in terms of houses, too,” he said, emphasizing that he wasn’t proposing a solution but raising the question.

“Should we go more to a stone, brick and stucco exterior versus siding? I think that’s a legitimate question, especially in certain parts of town…I think there’s some common sense things we can look at with regards to maybe some additional roofing standards and things like that,” he said.

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