PALMER LAKE — After pulling back last month, developers have resubmitted a controversial request that would pave the way for the state's second Buc-ee's.
Palmer Lake, a small town north of Colorado Springs, was approached to annex a 30-acre property at the corner of County Line Road and Interstate 25 last year for the future site of the super-sized Texas travel store chain.
In a December meeting, the town Board of Trustees ruled that the six contiguous requests — connecting the parcel to town limits by a thin line along part of County Line Road — were together legally eligible to be considered for approval.
The decision has received strong backlash from some, including a recall campaign of three trustees who approved the eligibility.
A meeting to consider the annexation had not been set this year before developers rescinded the application. Stan Beard, Buc-ee's director of real estate and development, said in a statement that the application was pulled due to a "technical issue."
Beard said that Buc-ee's would be resubmitting. According to town records, Palmer Lake received the new request April 3. At an April 10 meeting, the Board of Trustees decided to set the new eligibility hearing for a special meeting on May 29.
According to our news partners at The Gazette, the new submitted annexation plans do not offer reasoning on changes made. The new annexation map has some alterations from the previous submission.
The request is still a "flagpole" annexation, connecting the parcel to town limits via a thin right of way along County Line Road.
The newly submitted annexation requests cover a greater swath of the roadway straddling El Paso and Douglas counties than in the previous submission.
The issue of whether splitting the roadway affected the annexation's legal eligibility came up at its previous hearing in December. Nina Ruiz, a project consultant, said that only including the El Paso side was not a problem. She said that the developers may reach out to Douglas County to consider adding the other half at a later time.
“It would be our desire to work with Douglas County to annex the entire roadway,” she said.
The new requests also encompasses more of County Line Road to the west, past a parcel owned by the United Congregational Church recently de-annexed from the town. Concerns were also raised in December about eligibility in light of the de-annexation, though Ruiz said that the right of way of County Line Road covered the gap.
Both eligibility concerns were listed in a lawsuit filed in El Paso County District Court against the town in January by groups including the United Congregational Church.
In addition to alleging the de-annexed parcel would interrupt the connection to the town, the lawsuit also alleged that “annexation maps failed to annex the entire roadway width as required by (Colorado statute) and also the town’s Three-Mile Plan. The purpose of the statute is to ensure clarity of road maintenance responsibilities,” plaintiffs said in court documents.
Buc-ee's representatives have not responded to comment on the new request.
The Gazette's Savannah Eller contributed to this web story.
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