Plan for new truck stop o I-25 in Larkspur moving forward

Town needs planner

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A proposed new truck stop o Interstate 25 in south Douglas County has raised opposition from some area residents, but there seems to be little standing in the way of its approval.

e Town of Larkspur has run into one snag: It doesn’t have an o cial who can evaluate the developer’s design plan.

“What your (town) code says is the town planner shall approve or deny the site plan,” said Dan Krob, who provides attorney services to the town. “We don’t have a town planner.”

Larkspur, a small town of about 200 residents, doesn’t have the sta to plan development like a large city would, Krob noted during an April 6 town council meeting.

In the past, on smaller projects, the lack of a planner hasn’t come into play, Krob said.

“So we have historically forgone the planner, used the planning commission and their expertise to give a recommendation to council for the decision,” Krob said. A planning commission is a group of residents who are appointed to advise council on development matters.

But the land that would house the proposed truck stop — or “travel center,” as the town calls it — has commercial zoning, and town rules say any commercial development has to include a site plan, according to Krob. A site plan lays out the proposed changes to a property.

Krob recommended the council hire a planner as part of an agreement under which the developer would reimburse Larkspur so that the town doesn’t pay the planner’s cost. e truck stop would sit at 255 Upper Lake Gulch Road, just west of I-25. e town council voted to change the property’s zoning — the rules for what can be built on it —from “PUD,” or planned unit development, to commercial in July after public hearings in front of the planning commission and the council. (A PUD typically denotes a special type of zoning for a small

But “the town council chooses that planner. So it’s not the developer saying, ‘Hey buddy, you’re my planner.’ It’s us choosing the planner,” Krob said.

A town planner’s evaluation of a site plan could include suggested changes such as letting a developer know a “gradient is o , this setback needs to be moved” or other such items, Krob said. Or, for example, a planner could tell a developer they need to address an issue regarding the Colorado Department of Transportation, according to the meeting e planner, not the town council, approves or denies the site plan as long as the development is a “use by right” situation, meaning the developer’s right to build on the land doesn’t require higher scrutiny.

But if it’s a “use by special review” situation, the plan is in “the discretion” of the council, Krob said.

Whether the project may fall under special review is a determination that the planner should make, Krob said, based on the planner’s ability to interpret the town’s rules. e council at its next meeting was to decide whom to hire as planner. e motion to nd a planner for the project passed 5-2.