GAZETTE ARTICLE:
8-29-06
Landowners to be notified by mail of plan
By BILL HETHCOCK THE GAZETTE
Developers planning to build a $2.5 billion private toll road on Colorado’s eastern plains mailed letters Monday to property owners whose land lies in the potential path of the highway known as Super Slab.
Project backers also announced Monday that they’ve renamed the toll road and filed a new, narrower corridor plan with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The developers are calling the project Prairie Falcon Parkway Express instead of Super Slab, a nickname that has stuck to the highway for years.
Landowners along the project’s path vowed to continue their fight.
“We still have the same concerns,” said Marsha Looper, a small rancher and legislative candidate who lives in the corridor. “The toll road is not a feasible project for Colorado. We don’t need this private road, nor do we want this road cutting Colorado in half.”
Looper is running for House District 19, which covers a large swath of eastern El Paso County.
Prairie Falcon Parkway Express Co., formerly called Front Range Toll Road Co., sent certified letters to 4,000 parcel owners within a 3-milewide, 210-mile-long corridor. The letters were required under a new state law.
The proposed toll road would veer off Interstate 25 north of Fort Collins and reconnect south of Pueblo. It would run through Adams, Arapahoe, Elbert, El Paso, Pueblo, Larimer and Weld counties.
In addition to the toll road, the project would include rail and a utility corridor at a total cost of about $2.5 billion, project spokesman Jason Hopfer said.
Final alignment of the toll road within the corridor has not been determined and would depend on design requirements and public involvement, Hopfer said. The toll road company is complying with state laws passed this spring governing the private construction of toll roads, he said.
“We’re working through the process that a lot of folks advocated for,” he said. “It’s to the benefit of property owners and local officials and our folks to do it that way.”
The Super Slab corridor was proposed about 20 years ago by developer Ray Wells. The corridor has been trimmed from the 12-mile width initially proposed to adhere to the new state law, Hopfer said.
Under the new law, the company doesn’t have eminent domain power to condemn land for the project, but land can be condemned through a publicprivate partnership with the Colorado Department of Transportation, Hopfer said.
The strip of land ultimately needed within the 3-mile corridor would be about 1,200 feet wide — the width of two city blocks — which is much narrower than the 15,000-footwide corridor. Hopfer said toll road developers will look for willing sellers within the corridor and eminent domain will be a last resort.
“This project is about connecting communities, preserving habitat and strengthening commerce on Colorado’s short grass prairie,” Wells said in a statement. “It’s intended to reduce traffic along I-25, decrease rail traffic through Colorado Springs, Denver and numerous other municipalities, strengthen economic opportunities for communities along the corridor and preserve open space and wildlife habitat.”
Super Slab opponent Rob Dougherty said land sales aren’t truly voluntary if potential sellers are threatened with condemnation. Dougherty lives southeast of Pueblo within the 3-mile corridor and publishes a Web site called www. stupidslab.com.
Dougherty found it ironic that backers of the road are trying to improve their image by naming it after a prairie falcon a project that would cover thousands of acres of the bird’s hunting territory with asphalt and rails.
Hopfer said the name change reflects a new approach to the project.
“Not only is the corridor smaller, the project envisions working with local communities and local landowners to preserve wildlife habitat and open space as much as possible,” he said.
Project opponent Barbara Fillmore, whose eastern El Paso County ranch was in the 12-mile corridor, said she’ll keep fighting the project even though she lives outside the 3-mile corridor. She worries that the toll road would cut off county roads, forcing emergency vehicles and other traffic to drive out of their way to find overpasses.
“It’s going to be like a Great Wall splitting these counties,” she said. “It could be a massively wide corridor.”
Dougherty said the project’s backers hoped narrowing the corridor to 3 miles would defuse opposition. Instead, he said, it focused it.
“Now, it’s a definite list,” he said. “Before, people were thinking ‘These things never happen.’ Now they’re paying attention.”
Property owners in the corridor should expect to receive the certified letter this week, Hopfer said. The letter contains project details and a map showing the location of the 3-mile-wide corridor.
The notification is the first of many steps before construction could start. Regional and state planning and regulatory agencies will review the project, and an environmental review must be conducted.
