A bill to limit private roads hit a legislative wall Tuesday, but it might still find its way through the session in a slimmer form, lawmakers said after hearing from dozens of residents potentially in the path of a proposed 210-mile route from south of Pueblo to north of Fort Collins.
The House Transportation and Energy Committee will likely kill the bill when it reconvenes, then help its sponsor, Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, draft a new version, said committee chairwoman Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West.
“We’re not going to legislate on the fly with this bill,” she said after a three-hour hearing that marked the second day of testimony.
A new bill would clarify notations on thousands of land titles that indicate the Prairie Falcon Parkway Express might someday come through. The disclaimers were included in law that passed last year at the request of opponents to the toll road, who did not anticipate the notation’s impact on land values.
The current bill also would force developers to submit a development and financial plan to the Colorado Department of Transportation within 120 days after forming a company, and annually spend $500,000 or at least 3 percent of the project’s total cost. Developers also would have to buy 85 percent of all the land in a project before asking a government entity to condemn any parcel.
That measure would apply to all future toll roads and could kill many of them, said Herman Stockinger, legislative liaison for CDOT.
“‘One size fits all’ does not work in this case,” he told legislators.
At a hearing last week, David Foster, the lawyer for Prairie Falcon, said opponents were trying to bog down the project in continuous legislation to frighten off investors.
Opponents have sought legislation three years in a row to limit or kill the project.
Some opponents said Tuesday that was their goal.
“I made my investment; let them go somewhere else to make theirs,” said Doug Patterson, who retired to Weld County from Tennessee.
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
