Montezuma County continues hearing on proposed retail site at Road N after remand; public divided over traffic, rural character

The Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday continued a remand hearing on a proposed retail sales use at 27078 Road N in the county’s commercial and industrial overlay, giving commissioners additional time to review new evidence submitted by the applicant and to allow the public to respond.

Attorney Tarnowski, representing the board at the start of the session, said the hearing was limited by a district‑court order remanding the case to the board for two narrow reasons: “The first is a due process issue relating to the sharing of that information that was submitted during the hearing by the public but was not submitted to the applicant, and the applicant was not afforded an opportunity to respond to those written comments. And the second issue is that the BOCC needs to issue a written decision as required by Montezuma County’s land use code.”

The application seeks approval of a high‑impact permit for a retail tenant on a 3.78‑acre parcel at the intersection of County Road N and State Highway 145. The application was previously heard by the planning commission and denied by the board on April 30, 2024; the applicant appealed and the district court ordered the two procedural items addressed on remand (04/11/2025). The remand hearing was described by the applicant as a “limited public hearing” to allow new evidence responding to written public submittals and to let the public comment on that new evidence.

Applicant representatives presented a site plan, a traffic analysis prepared by Kimley‑Horn and an appraisal produced for the lender. The applicant said the property is zoned for commercial use, lies inside a county commercial overlay intended for corridor development and already has turn lanes on Highway 145 that were installed by the state.

Mary Gormley, a traffic engineer with Kimley‑Horn who answered questions by phone, summarized the traffic study: “The trips generated by this project will have 1 additional vehicle per 2 minutes for the morning peak hour and then 2 vehicles per minute in the afternoon,” and she said the intersection currently operates at acceptable levels under industry standards. The traffic report noted one property‑damage crash in the past five years at that intersection, the consultant said.

Vic Romano, an appraiser who said he prepared an appraisal for the project lender, told commissioners he reviewed comparable single‑tenant rural retail sites and “could not find any reasonable impacts that would be of detriment to the surrounding community” and that, in his view, the retail support use would likely be “advantageous” to nearby properties.

The applicant’s presentation focused in part on what it described as the public’s opposition to a particular tenant (a national discount retailer) rather than the zoning or infrastructure issues. “The first and biggest objection was the fact that Dollar General was the retailer,” the applicant’s representative said during his presentation.

Public commenters raised safety and quality‑of‑life concerns. Brad Demond, who said he lives about a mile from the site, told commissioners, “The traffic at that intersection is not appropriate for this kind of an establishment… There will be accidents if this store is approved.” Several other residents told the board they use the intersection routinely and described frequent near‑misses, concerns about sight distance and seasonal traffic spikes.

Commissioners and staff repeatedly framed the question as regulatory: because the project produces more than the 15 round‑trip vehicle threshold that triggers the county’s high‑impact review, the board must evaluate the application under the county’s code and relevant standards. The applicant said it has obtained a CDOT access permit and a county driveway permit application is in process; county staff noted that driveway permits expire and must be current if the board conditions approval on them.

After hearing applicant testimony, consultant summaries and more than 20 members of the public at the podium, the board discussed a procedural issue the district court had flagged on remand: members of the public had submitted new material at the hearing and the applicant had insufficient time to respond in writing. Commissioners agreed to allow a short, discrete additional process so the record is clear and all parties have the opportunity to comment on the materials presented at the remand session.

The board voted to continue the hearing to July 8, 2025 at 9:30 a.m., with two explicit conditions: no additional materials beyond what the applicant submitted at the June 24 session may be placed into the record before that date, and public comment at the reconvened hearing will be limited to the new materials submitted for the remand. The motion passed unanimously.

What happens next: the applicant’s submittals presented June 24 will be posted for public review; the board will accept public comment only on those materials at the July 8 reconvened hearing before closing the evidentiary record and issuing a written decision. The county’s planners and the applicant also flagged several technical follow‑ups — completion of a current driveway permit application, final photometric (lighting) plans and a 10,000‑gallon fire‑suppression cistern shown on site plans — that the board may consider as compliance items if the case returns to a conditional approval posture.

The remand proceeding underscores two recurring tensions in county land‑use decisions: the legal limits of local review, and strong community reactions to specific national tenants in rural settings. Commissioners emphasized they are bound to apply the county code and industry standards for traffic and utilities when they render a written decision after the record re‑opens on July 8.