A travel-center giant that much of the Tri-Lakes has opposed—and that would sit about two miles from the new Greenland wildlife crossing—is asking a single county official to wave it through, by ruling that a 74,000-square-foot plaza is just a “convenience store.”

Update · July 2, 2026
On July 1st the county issued its ruling on ADM264 — a non-determination. Planning director Meggan Herington found the county “cannot determine” whether a Buc-ee’s is a “convenience store,” or is similar enough to an allowed C-1 use; it is neither an approval nor a denial. Only Buc-ee’s, as the property owner, may appeal — to the Board of County Commissioners — within 30 days.

Beaten back when it tried to enter through the town of Palmer Lake, Buc-ee’s is now trying a far quieter way in. On June 18th the Texas chain asked a single El Paso County official to declare that its planned travel plaza at Interstate 25 and County Line Road is—for the purposes of the zoning code—a “convenience store.” That one word, should the county accept it, would let the company build with no rezoning, no public hearing, no vote by the elected commissioners and, by the county’s own reading of who may appeal, no recourse for the neighbors within the county process. It is the quietest conceivable route to the loudest project the Tri-Lakes has seen—a regional draw that residents have fought for the better part of two years, and that would rise at the southern doorstep of the conserved Greenland landscape, about two miles from a brand-new wildlife crossing built to stitch that habitat back together.

The vehicle is an “administrative determination”—county file ADM264—filed by Buc-ee’s EPCO, LLC, the entity that this spring bought the 30-acre parcel. It asks the planning director to rule that a Buc-ee’s is a “convenience store,” a use the site’s existing commercial zoning already permits, or is “substantially similar” enough to count as one. The fee was paid on June 23rd. It is the company’s first formal move toward county approval since its annexation bid in the town of Palmer Lake collapsed in February. The interesting part is not that Buc-ee’s is trying again; it is the door it has chosen. (El Paso County’s development portal; KOAA, June 23rd.)

It is a modest filing with immodest consequences. For a project this size usually arrives through the front door—a rezoning or a special-use permit, decided by the Board of County Commissioners after a public hearing on criteria fixed in the Land Development Code. Buc-ee’s is trying the back door.

The back door

El Paso County sorts land-use decisions into three boxes. Rezonings, special-use permits and subdivisions are “quasi-judicial”: they require a recommendation from the Planning Commission and a vote by the commissioners after a noticed public hearing. Amending the code itself is “legislative”, again a commissioners’ vote. An administrative determination is neither. It is, in the code’s own words, “the process used by the PCD Director to decide a written request to interpret the provisions of this Code”—a written ruling, usually within 14 business days, that the code permits staff to handle. No hearing is required. The county confirms it “does not require notification to adjacent property owners”. (El Paso County Land Development Code; the county’s “Buc-ee’s Update” page; KOAA.)

The director—currently Meggan Herington, who has held the post since January 2023—may refer the matter to the commissioners. But that referral is discretionary. Unless Ms Herington chooses to send the question upstairs, whether a Buc-ee’s may be built on Monument Hill could be answered with a single staff signature.

The whole contest, then, turns on a noun. The parcel is zoned C-1, which the county itself calls an “obsolete” general-commercial district. Its use table, Table 5-1, sorts every use in every district into one of three fates: allowed by right, allowed only as a “special use” after a public hearing, or not allowed at all. The labels a Buc-ee’s might wear fall on opposite sides of that line. In C-1 a “convenience store”, “gas station”, “car wash” and “restaurant” are each allowed by right, needing only an administrative site plan and no hearing. A “truck stop” is the opposite case: the code allows it nowhere by right, permits it only as a special use—the route that triggers a Planning Commission recommendation and a public vote by the commissioners—and then only in a handful of heavier service-commercial and industrial districts, not in C-1 at all. So were the county to read the project as a truck stop rather than a convenience store, Buc-ee’s would face not merely a hearing but the need to rezone. (El Paso County LDC, Table 5-1.)

So a favorable ruling would not merely skip the commissioners’ vote; it would skip the special-use compatibility hearing, the one venue in which the project’s traffic, lighting, water and wildlife effects would be formally weighed and conditioned. Buc-ee’s will say it is no truck stop—it famously bans semi-trailers from its pumps. Its critics retort that, by the code’s own test of “character, descriptor, and intensity”, a 74,000-square-foot emporium with more than 100 fueling positions is a truck stop in all but name.

The numbers do not flatter the smaller label. Set against its neighbors, using county assessor figures compiled by residents, the proposed Buc-ee’s would be some five-and-a-half times the size of the area’s actual Pilot Travel Center, and about 31 times the size of a Monument 7-Eleven:

A ‘convenience store,’ to scale
Building footprint in square feet — proposed Buc-ee’s vs. Monument-area stores
Buc-ee’s (proposed)
~74,000
30 acres
Pilot Travel Center
13,479
9.9 acres
QuikTrip
7,628
7.56 acres
Valero
4,099
2.04 acres
7-Eleven (Monument)
2,400
0.23 acres
≈ 5.5× the area’s Pilot Travel Center  ·  ≈ 31× a Monument 7-Eleven
Figures from El Paso County Assessor records, compiled by residents and confirmed by this newspaper. The Buc-ee’s figure is the proposed building.

There is, too, an awkward document. The Colorado Sun reported in April that a deed restriction tied to the property forbids its use for a convenience store, gas station or barbecue food services, though whether it allows exceptions is unclear. Should a recorded covenant bar the very use Buc-ee’s is asking the county to bless, the contradiction may yet be litigated by someone other than the county. (The Colorado Sun, April 22nd.)

Whose appeal?

Here residents tend to be surprised. An administrative determination may be appealed within 30 days—but only by an “aggrieved party”, which the county defines as the owner of the land subject to the application. Read plainly, the public cannot appeal the ruling; only Buc-ee’s could, and only were the answer “no”. There is no hearing and no advance notice to neighbors. Any appeal that did occur would go to the commissioners, who would dispose of it by motion or resolution, after which the lone remaining avenue is the District Court. (The county’s “Buc-ee’s Update” page; the Land Development Code; KOAA.)

That is not quite the same as having no recourse. Whether a neighbor has standing to ask a court to review the decision is a separate question from the county’s internal appeal rule, and Colorado courts have sometimes granted standing to affected parties. This newspaper offers no legal advice; residents tempted by that route should consult a land-use lawyer.

What, then, can the public do? Because an administrative determination has no comment period, the county need not solicit or weigh public views before deciding. Residents may still write in, and the county will file what they send—though in related Buc-ee’s files this year such submissions were stamped “not part of the official record” and “for reference purposes only”. Those who wish to be heard can email the planning department’s Planner of the Day at [email protected], citing file ADM264; write to Ms Herington at [email protected]; reach their commissioners through Citizen Connect (citizenconnect.elpasoco.com); and ask that materials be added to the ADM264 file. Two things such input can plausibly achieve: it can press the director to refer the question to the commissioners—the only door to a public forum—and it can build a written record of objections that would matter in any later court challenge. (A caveat: lobbying commissioners to refer the matter is fair game now, but once a question becomes quasi-judicial before the board, they may not discuss it until they vote.)

Sidebar — How to weigh in on ADM264

There is no formal comment period for an administrative determination, and the director is not obliged to weigh public input. But the county will log written comments in the case file. To be heard:

The water question the ruling cannot answer

Zoning is one gate; water is another, and the determination opens neither for the developer. Since 1986 El Paso County has, in reviewing new development, required proof of a water supply that can be sustained for 300 years—three times the state’s 100-year standard. Buc-ee’s would draw on non-renewable Denver Basin groundwater. The only supply on the public record is two state well permits, issued to the former owner and conveyed with the land, allowing a combined draw of about 33 acre-feet, or roughly 11m gallons, a year. Those permits are reckoned on the state’s 100-year basis, not the county’s 300-year rule. (CPR, April 2nd; the Denver Gazette, April 25th.)

As of late June no development plan or water-adequacy demonstration had reached the county; officials say they have received none. And the arithmetic is tight even at the lower bar: the average daily demand of 37,300 gallons that Buc-ee’s estimated for its Palmer Lake plan would come to about 13.6m gallons a year—some 2.5m to 3m more than the permitted wells can yield. (The Denver Gazette, April 25th.)

Two caveats sharpen the point. The administrative determination cannot waive the water finding: under state law the county must judge a development’s supply adequate before issuing a permit, and Colorado grants it “sole discretion” to do so. Yet because the 300-year rule is rooted in subdivision review, a developer that avoids a subdivision can argue only the weaker 100-year standard applies. The county would still have to make some adequacy finding—which is why water remains the firmest ground on which the project might be conditioned or refused. (C.R.S. 29-20-301; El Paso County land-use analysis.)

The crossing next door

If the lights are the worry, their neighbor is the reason. The Monument Hill site sits at the southern mouth of what conservationists rank among the most consequential wildlife corridors in America—and beside a piece of public infrastructure built precisely to keep it whole.

In December 2025 the Colorado Department of Transportation finished the Greenland Wildlife Overpass, billed as the largest structure of its kind over a major road in North America. The roughly $15m span crosses six lanes of I-25 near milepost 165, knitting together some 39,000 acres of habitat and, beyond them, more than a million acres of the Pike National Forest. It is the capstone of the I-25 “South Gap” crossing system, expected to cut wildlife-vehicle collisions on the stretch by about 90%. For months it stood empty; only in June were the first elk filmed crossing it—three of them, picking their way over the traffic, half a year after the bridge opened. The proposed Buc-ee’s would rise about two miles south, at the I-25 and County Line Road interchange on the northern edge of El Paso County. (The Denver Gazette/Out There Colorado, June 20th; CDOT.)

The corridor exists thanks to one of Colorado’s great acts of private conservation. In 2000 John Malone, a cable billionaire, paid about $55m to take the 17,700-acre Greenland Ranch off the market and roughly $23m more to secure easements; Douglas County bought some 3,600 acres west of I-25 as public open space, now stewarded by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. Greenland endures as the largest buffer keeping Denver and Colorado Springs from fusing into one continuous sprawl. (Great Outdoors Colorado.)

A 24-hour, floodlit, high-traffic plaza at the corridor’s edge, conservationists warn, could undo some of that public investment: light pollution in country that prizes its dark skies, more traffic and roadkill beside the new crossing, harm to mule deer, black bears and nesting raptors, and run-off. In September 2025 Mr Polis, the governor, joined by Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, wrote to Buc-ee’s chief executive, Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, urging him to think again about building near Greenland. (The Colorado Sun, May 28th 2025; the Denver Gazette, September 17th 2025.)

A jurisdictional irony underlies it all. The overpass and most of Greenland lie in Douglas County, but the decision belongs to El Paso. The very governments most invested in the corridor—Douglas County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, CDOT—get to be consulted, not to vote, much as the town of Monument did when it formally objected to the parcel’s recent boundary tidy-up.

How the parcel got here

Buc-ee’s interest is old. It took a 73,372-square-foot travel center through the county’s pre-application “Early Assistance” review in 2024, then chased annexation into Palmer Lake—a campaign that ended in February when the company withdrew amid fierce opposition. (El Paso County files; CPR.)

This spring the board pieces moved fast. Buc-ee’s EPCO, LLC—formed in January by the company’s general counsel, Jeff Nadalo—bought the parcel from Monument Ridge West, LLC, in a deed recorded on April 2nd, for a reported $10m-plus. (The Colorado Sun; KKTV.) The lot was reshaped by a boundary-line adjustment (file EXBL261) filed by Vertex Consulting Services—the firm of Craig Dossey, a former county planning director—and approved on March 10th. A grading permit for some 80,000 cubic yards of material (file CDR261) was approved on March 12th, two days after the county had halted work on the site for moving earth before its permits were complete. (El Paso County files; the Gazette, March 10th.)

Through it all the county has stressed that “no development application” for a Buc-ee’s has been filed and that commissioners must stay neutral pending any hearing. The company has said little; in April a spokesperson offered The Colorado Sun a two-word statement: “No comment.” (The county’s “Buc-ee’s Update“; The Colorado Sun.)

Meanwhile, an election

The determination may never reach the elected board. But if Ms Herington refers it upward—or if a special-use or rezoning application follows later—the decision would fall to the next commissioner for District 1, the seat that takes in Monument Hill. The Republican primary for that seat is on June 30th—a two-way race between Lindsay Moore and Ryan Graham—and its winner will face the lone Democrat, Gavin Rainey, in November. Where the three candidates stand is therefore not academic.

Two of them put it in writing. In the candidate survey run by Integrity Matters, a local watchdog, Lindsay Moore, a Republican, said she opposes a Buc-ee’s at the site: a “mega sized commercial store”, she wrote, “goes against both the water master plan and the El Paso County Master plan”, and a commissioner’s duty is ultimately to “do no harm to the citizens.” Mr Rainey, the only candidate in the contest to have taken no developer money, also opposes it—”no amount of money,” he wrote, “is worth overriding the will of the citizens.” Both said they would insist on findings on water adequacy, traffic, noise and lighting before any approval; Mr Rainey added that he would commission an independent water-quality study at the developer’s expense, not the taxpayer’s.

Ryan Graham, the other Republican in the contest, did neither. He did not return the survey, and has declined to say how he would vote. Of the roughly $50,000 his campaign has raised, nearly 60%—about $30,000—came from development, real-estate and allied interests, according to the group’s review of state campaign-finance records. (Integrity Matters, 2026 County Commissioner Candidate Surveys.)

There is an awkwardness here that the county’s own rules create. Commissioners, the county insists, must approach a quasi-judicial land-use decision with an open mind and no prior commitment. Candidates not yet in office are free to campaign on a position—yet a flat “I oppose” can later cloud a commissioner’s standing to judge the very same application. Mr Rainey tried to square that circle, stating his opposition while pledging to “respect the constitutional rights of applicants” and weigh the formal case at its hearing. Mr Graham squared it differently: by saying nothing at all.

What happens next

Staff review ran about eight business days—well short of the fourteen it is allowed—and on July 1st the county gave its answer: it could not give one. Rather than rule the travel plaza a “convenience store” or reject the label, the director found the county “cannot determine” the classification at all—neither approving nor denying (see the update above). The next move now belongs to Buc-ee’s, which has 30 days to appeal the non-determination to the commissioners, or to file a fresh application; either path leads toward the public hearing the administrative route was built to avoid.

Colorado’s first Buc-ee’s, in Johnstown, opened in 2024 the conventional way: inside a town, on town water, approved by an elected council in open session. Monument Hill is the company’s attempt at the unconventional route—needing neither a town’s water nor, perhaps, a public vote. The elk, at least, took six months to trust their bridge. Buc-ee’s would like its answer in fourteen days.

Sources

The administrative determination (ADM264) and the process

Size comparison

Candidates and the District 1 election (June 30 primary)

Water

Wildlife corridor and conservation

Background, ownership and prior county actions

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Michael Christensen is the editor of The Monument Independent. He holds a BA in history and an MS in statistics, and has spent 30 years in marketing — the last 15 focused on digital marketing, data analytics,...

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4 Comments

  1. Thank you for this article and really taking the time and research on every aspect of what has happened thus far with Buc-ee’s and what could potentially happen now as things proceed. I am reeling with disgust as to how Buc-ee’s is going through the back door to try and make this happen without a vote. I hope Ms Herrington will read this article in its entirety and understand how detrimental this would be to build in the current location.

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  2. Is Safeway zoned as a Convenience Store? After all it is only about 70,000 square feet! Has fuel pumps, a deli, wine and beer, and sells novelties. According to KOAA, the Safeway located at 624 Hwy 105 in Monument, CO, is zoned as Commercial Community (CC), whatever that means.

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  4. So, we have a Data Center going up in the City and a Buc-ee’s in the County. Fortunately, we have some pretty informed, vigilant residents to alert us of the shenanigans of government officials. There’s also another similarity in the apparent deceit and disregard for the public. Any elected public official who deceives or defies the public will be subject to removal from office under Colorado recall laws. It just requires the right timing, procedure, and number of petition signers. In case any of these commissioners or councilors are reading this here’s a message for you: You’re really beginning to piss us off and WE’RE COMING AFTER YOU!

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