What El Paso County’s Draft Code Would Make Easier to Build

El Paso County’s draft rewrite of its zoning and subdivision rules would let more homes go on the same land, take a list of rural uses out of special review, cut some costs for builders and leave out several rules that neighbors rely on today. It also asks more of developers on water and wildlife. Public comment on the draft closes at 5 p.m. Dec. 18.

The county is rewriting its Land Development Code, the rules that govern what can be built outside its towns. The first two modules of the draft, released in July, run to 516 pages. Much of that is housekeeping: districts merged and renamed, sections renumbered, definitions tidied. The rest changes what a landowner may do without asking, and how many people get asked.

The Independent read the whole draft against the code in force today. The changes that matter most to builders point one way. More homes would fit on the same land, more uses would be allowed without a special review, several costs would fall, and a few rules that neighbors and planning commissioners cite are missing. The drafters write that they “followed the existing permissions in the related existing districts unless otherwise noted.” Of the 51 footnotes in the draft’s use tables, one notes a move from special use to allowed by right. It concerns cell towers.

More homes on the same land

Duplexes would be allowed by right in every agricultural and rural residential district, from 35-acre farm zoning down to half-acre lots. Today a two-family dwelling in most of those districts is a special use, and the code’s use table adds that the “use requires central water and wastewater services.” The draft’s table carries no such note. The footnote on the duplex row reads, in full, “New.”

Half-acre land would get denser. Two of today’s districts, RR-0.5 (minimum lot 21,780 square feet) and RS-20000 (20,000 square feet), become a new Residential Low Density district. It allows a house or a duplex on 10,000 square feet and a paired home on 5,000 square feet per unit. On land zoned RS-20000 today, the minimum front setback falls from 40 feet to 15 and the cap on lot coverage rises from 20 percent to 50.

Land now zoned RM-12, for 12 homes an acre, would join a new Residential Flex district whose maximum is 30 an acre. A note in the table says that maximum “is allowed but not guaranteed.”

A cluster option, which the draft labels “New,” would let owners of 30 acres or more build the same number of homes on smaller lots and set the rest of the land aside. “No minimum lot size is required in the development cluster,” the draft says, except 2.5 acres where homes rely on wells or septic. One version, the “limited-term” cluster, protects the open land “for a defined period of time, rather than in perpetuity.” None of the draft’s three references to it says how long that period must be.

What the draft changes for a builder

Item	Today	July 2026 draft
Duplex on farm and rural land	Special use in most of these districts; central water and sewer required	Allowed by right; no water or sewer note
Smallest lot, today’s half-acre districts	21,780 sq ft (RR-0.5); 20,000 sq ft (RS-20000)	10,000 sq ft per house or duplex; 5,000 per paired-home unit
Density on today’s RM-12 land	12 units an acre	Up to 30 an acre, “allowed but not guaranteed”
Office parking	1 space per 200 sq ft (5 per 1,000)	2 per 1,000 sq ft
Restaurant parking	1 space per 100 sq ft (10 per 1,000)	5 per 1,000 sq ft
Height, homes on rural and suburban lots	30 ft (RR-5 through RS-5000)	35 ft
Height, apartments and townhouses	40 ft (RM-12, RM-30)	45 ft
Height, commercial land	40 to 45 ft (CC, CS)	40, 50 or 60 ft, depending on the new mixed-use district
Height, heavy industry	40 ft (I-3)	60 ft
Height, farm buildings on 5-acre farm land	30 ft (A-5)	60 ft if at least a quarter mile from a residential district
Height, 35-acre farm land	30 ft; up to 100 ft with extra setback	30 ft; farm buildings up to 60 ft with matching setback
Water supply, minor subdivisions	“The BoCC shall determine the sufficiency”	The planning director may approve the water report
Lot access	30 ft of frontage on a public road	A public street, private road or access easement

Fewer special reviews

Under today’s code a “special use” is weighed against criteria that include whether it “will be in harmony with the character of the neighborhood.” In the draft, a list of rural uses moves from special use to allowed by right, which means approval of a site plan against written standards. Child-care centers and cemeteries make the move in the farm and rural districts; bed and breakfasts and RV parks and campgrounds on farm land and 5-acre rural land; large kennels on 5-acre land; and veterinary clinics on agricultural land.

A special use does not always mean a public hearing. The planning director may approve most of them alone today. What goes is the review itself, and the neighborhood test that comes with it.

Lower costs

The draft says its parking rules aim at “avoiding overbuilt parking that can increase costs and reduce usable land.” Offices would need two spaces per 1,000 square feet of floor area instead of five, and restaurants five instead of ten. Apartments of up to three bedrooms would need one space each, plus 10 percent for guests, against 1.1 to 2 spaces and a guest space for every three units today.

Other savings are smaller and scattered. Lots could take access from “a private road, or access easement”; the footnote records “Removed minimum 30 feet frontage.” Landscaping rules would not apply to lots in the two agricultural districts, an exemption the footnote traces to a staff “interpretation policy.” Height limits rise from 30 feet to 35 in four residential districts and from 40 feet to 60 in the heavy-industrial district. For minor subdivisions, which today’s code defines as four lots or fewer, the planning director could approve the water report, a finding the code now leaves to the county commissioners.

Rules neighbors cite today

Three provisions that residents and planning commissioners use are not in the draft. The current subdivision chapter says “Divisions of land shall generally conform to the Master Plan.” The draft section that replaces it says only that land must be zoned before a plat is approved; its footnote reads “From 8.2.” The current code also says that when an owner “commits in writing or verbally in a hearing” to stricter terms, “the commitments shall be fully enforceable.” The draft has no such rule. And the county’s own wetland standards become a pointer to federal and state permits.

Farm buildings would lose two limits: the size above which a special use is needed today, and the commissioners’ public hearing before an exemption is revoked. The footnote says enforcement will be “broadly addressed” in a later chapter.

Some of this may come back. Chapter 19, which will say who gets notice, who holds hearings and who may appeal, reads “[To be drafted in Module 3: Administration and Procedures].” Until it is written, the draft’s “S” for special use points back to today’s procedure.

How it could play out at Walker Road

Take the 15 acres at the southeast corner of Highway 83 and Walker Road, beside Monument Academy‘s middle and high school. MA Infrastructure LLC has applied to rezone them from five-acre lots: the northern 7.79 acres to RM-12 (file P2612) and the southern 7.56 acres to RS-5000, a district of 5,000-square-foot lots (file P2611). The Planning Commission recommended denial, 7–2, on Nov. 5, and the commissioners decide on Dec. 10, under today’s code. In July they refused RM-30, 30 units an acre, on the same northern acres.

Using the lot sizes in the county’s staff report, the Independent calculates that the two districts would allow about 190 homes. The draft’s summary table moves RM-12 into Residential Flex and RS-5000 into a new Residential Medium Density district, and measured the same way the ceiling roughly doubles, to about 380. The northern acres would carry the density the commissioners refused in July.

Walker Road: what the requested zoning would allow

Land	Today’s code	July 2026 draft
North 7.79 acres, requested RM-12	12 homes an acre: about 93. Height 40 ft	Residential Flex, up to 30 an acre, “allowed but not guaranteed”: about 233. Height 45 ft
South 7.56 acres, requested RS-5000	About 65 houses on 5,000-sq-ft lots, or about 94 two-family homes on 7,000 sq ft. Height 30 ft	Residential Medium Density: about 65 houses; about 131 as duplexes (5,000 sq ft per building); about 149 as paired homes (2,200 sq ft each); townhouses on 1,200 sq ft each, up to 10 to a building. Height 35 ft
Both, as requested	About 187	About 382 with paired homes; more with townhouses
All 15.35 acres, if denied	Five-acre lots: 3 houses; a duplex needs a special-use review and central water and sewer	3 lots with a duplex on each, no review needed: 6 homes

Nothing would hurry the owner. A rezoning needs no plat, no concept plan and, under today’s code, no finding that water is sufficient, and the section of the code that governs rezonings sets no deadline for using one. Land rezoned in December could sit until the new code is adopted and in force, and be subdivided afterward.

Whether it would work that way, the draft does not say. Its table lists which old districts become which new ones, but not how existing parcels convert, and it has no general rule for land zoned before it takes effect. The condition county staff recommend for this rezoning ties future building to “the use, density, and dimensional standards” of RS-5000 and RM-12, two districts the new code would replace; nothing says whether those limits outlive the districts. Residential Flex’s maximum “is allowed but not guaranteed,” and the draft does not say who decides how much of it a builder gets. The commissioners could write a cap into their resolution, a power today’s code says should be “exercised sparingly and in exceptional situations.” And a promise an owner makes at a hearing binds the plat today; the rule that says so is not in the draft. Any plat would still need a water report and would have to meet the county’s 300-year supply rule.

What gets tighter

The draft also asks more of developers. A water resources report would be due at rezoning, planned-unit development, site plans, special uses and changes of use, as well as when new lots are created, and the county’s 300-year supply rule stays. A wildlife report becomes mandatory where mapped habitat may be affected, and “the applicant is responsible for payment of fees associated with the review by CPW,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Business event centers, a special use on farm land today, would not be allowed there. Assembly buildings in the farm and residential districts would be capped at 20,000 square feet. New building-design standards come from Colorado Springs‘ code.

Who is commenting

As of Nov. 11 the county’s comment site held 288 comments under 37 display names, which commenters type in themselves. None says they write for a builders’ group, a developer or a consulting firm. The one commenter who names an affiliation is a board member of NEPCO, the Northern El Paso County Coalition of Community Organizations, posting as “Commenting Personally.”

Two display names, “nina” and “nina 1,” wrote 106 of the comments, more than a third. Most ask the county to drop or soften a requirement, and none asks for a stricter one. Neither name comes with a last name, a firm or a client, and the site does not show whether they are one person. The other commenters who take a side mostly want tighter rules, on big stores and fuel stations, buffers, lighting and water. The main exceptions are dog owners seeking higher animal limits and a commenter on billboards.

The only objections to the draft’s new water-report requirement came from “nina 1”; seven other commenters asked for stricter water rules. No reply on the site comes from the county or its consultant, Clarion Associates. The county says the draft “reflects feedback received from the Working Group and County staff.” Comments on these two modules close at 5 p.m. Dec. 18. Module 3, the procedures, has not been released; the project’s schedule puts adoption between January and March.

Sources & further reading

The Independent’s own coverage: El Paso County Is Rewriting the Rules the Buc-ee’s Fight Turned On (Aug. 30, 2026) · The Planning Commission Says No to Walker Road Again, 7-2 (Nov. 5, 2026)

County record: Draft Land Development Code, Modules 1 and 2 · LDC Update project, About and FAQ · Current Land Development Code (Municode) · Walker Road rezoning files P2612 (RM-12) and P2611 (RS-5000), with the Planning Commission staff report of Oct. 29, 2026

Methodology

The Independent read all 516 pages of the July 2026 consolidated draft of Modules 1 and 2 and compared each change cited here with the current code, as codified on Municode through Supplement 3 (February 2024) and as printed in the county’s comparison document of Sept. 3, 2026. Use permissions were checked on the rendered tables in both codes, since the tables’ rotated headers do not survive text extraction. Amendments adopted since Supplement 3 and not yet codified were not checked. “Not in the draft” means absent from the July 2026 draft; the procedures module may restore provisions. Footnote counts cover the 51 footnotes printed on the draft’s use-table pages. The Walker Road estimates are the Independent’s. They divide the acreage in the two files by the minimum lot area for each kind of home: 5,000 square feet per house and 7,000 per two-family building in RS-5000, as the staff report describes, and the draft’s sizes for Residential Medium Density. RM-12 and Residential Flex use their maximums of 12 and 30 an acre. All figures are rounded down. They are ceilings on lot area before streets, drainage and easements, which reduce what can be built. The draft’s district table is the only source for how today’s districts would map to the new ones.

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