Rezoning at the Schoolhouse Gate

A plan to drop hundreds of apartments onto a rural stretch of Highway 83 reunites a familiar Tri-Lakes cast — and the county’s own staff recommends approval even as the county’s own plan argues against it.

On June 18 the El Paso County Planning Commission will weigh whether to turn a quiet corner at Highway 83 and Walker Road into one of northern El Paso County’s densest residential sites. The request — county files P261 and P262 — would rezone 15.35 vacant acres beside Monument Academy’s east campus from RR-5, which allows one home per five acres, to RM-12 and RM-30, which together permit roughly 300 apartments or townhomes where about three houses could stand today. County planning staff recommend approval. The county’s own master plan, the surrounding zoning, the applicant’s own traffic engineer, and nearly every resident who has written in suggest otherwise.

The numbers frame the leap. Today the tract could hold about three houses. Under the requested zoning it could hold about 324 dwelling units — up to 30 to the acre on the northern piece. The nearest land already zoned for that kind of density sits more than four miles away. Within three miles, the application acknowledges, “the residential development … is all single-family detached.”

A recommendation at odds with the record

The staff report is unusual reading. It recommends that the Board of County Commissioners approve both rezonings and finds “no outstanding major issues.” Yet its own analysis points the other way. The property lies inside what the master plan calls the Black Forest / North Central Large-Lot Residential Priority Development Area, where, the report states plainly, “multi-family is not supported.” It notes the proposed densities are “significantly higher than the surrounding densities of single-family properties in all directions,” that the nearest RM-12 zoning is 5.12 miles off and the nearest RM-30 4.2 miles, and that the small pocket of “Suburban Residential” the application leans on is “surrounded by the Large-Lot Residential Placetype on three sides.” The application itself asks the county to treat its own adopted maps as mistaken, arguing that the “Minimal Change” designation covering the land does not match conditions on the ground.

The public has not been ambivalent. The county file holds more than four dozen written comments, and not one supports the project. Several were addressed directly to the district’s own commissioner, Holly Williams, who forwarded them to planning staff. Residents invoked the master plan, water, wildfire evacuation and, above all, traffic. “The reason to approve it is one, profit,” wrote Deidre Greenly, a Walden Preserve resident; “that profit will not benefit the people who live here.” Jeff Vanderbilt, another resident, vowed to “campaign and run against any El Paso County commissioner who … votes in favor.”

The road already fails

The sharpest evidence against the rezoning is the developer’s own. The traffic impact study, prepared in June by LSC Transportation Consultants for “Matt and Bill Dunston,” finds that the gateway intersection of Highway 83, Highway 105 and Walker Road already operates at Level of Service F — failure — at peak times, “with or without the addition of site-generated traffic.” Several movements fail today during the morning and school-afternoon peaks; by 2045 the intersection is projected to fail overall in the morning peak. Restoring it to acceptable service, the study says, would require adding lanes or replacing the signal with a roundabout.

The traffic fix for an apartment complex named after the school leans partly on the school changing its day.

It also offers a striking second remedy. Because much of the strain falls during school drop-off and pick-up, the engineers suggest the school could help by staggering its bell times: “although the applicant cannot control or dictate school schedules … staggering of school start times … could potentially have a significant effect.” The traffic fix for an apartment complex named after the school, in other words, leans partly on the school changing its day. The study counts roughly 1,931 new daily trips from the rezoning tract, with about a hundred cars leaving in the single morning peak hour, and notes that residents pulling out during school pick-up would face their own delays — some forced to drive south and make a U-turn at the Pinehurst roundabout.

The owner, and a deal residents questioned once before

The land belongs to MA Infrastructure LLC, an entity registered to Matthew W. Dunston of 1230 Scarsbrook Court and formed in May 2019. Dunston is not a newcomer to this ground. In 2018 he bought the surrounding 65 acres from Lewis-Palmer School District 38, donated part of it for the Monument Academy campus, and kept the rest. Residents called it a conflict of interest then; Dunston, a former member of the academy’s board who resigned in May 2018, had, neighbors said, “leveraged his having served on a local education board to benefit financially.” He rejected the charge — “It’s not even in the universe of impropriety” — and noted, when asked about the land he retained, that he “will likely also have to get zoning approvals to develop the rest of the site, but that’s a long way off.” That was 2019. The long way off has arrived.

County records show the development is bigger than the two tracts now up for rezoning. Through MA Infrastructure, Dunston owns four parcels here — the 15.35-acre rezoning tract and, directly south across Pinehurst Circle, a roughly 20-acre second tract that the staff report describes as “vacant and proposed for RR-0.5” and the traffic study models as 31 future single-family homes, plus two small road strips. The rezoning, in short, is the first phase of a roughly 35-acre assemblage.

One document in the county file captures the arrangement neatly. The water-and-sewer commitment that helps satisfy the county’s utility requirement is written on the letterhead of the Walden Corporation, addressed “Dear Mr. Dunston,” and signed by Matthew Dunston. The developer is also the water provider vouching that water exists. The Walden system draws from wells, and residents say it is already strained. In a comment filed with the county, Stephanie Colgate, a Walden North resident, wrote that the corporation “is not even able to handle the current capacity” and that the runoff ponds near the school carry “such a bad stench we have to call to report it.”

A familiar firm, and a familiar pattern

The application is carried by Vertex Consulting Services, a Colorado Springs land-planning firm whose principals know the county’s machinery from the inside. Vertex’s president, Craig Dossey, ran El Paso County’s Planning and Community Development Department from 2015 until 2022 and led the drafting of the 2021 master plan — the same plan the rezoning letter quotes, page by page, to argue the project conforms. A senior Vertex consultant, Nina Ruiz, was the county planner quoted in the 2019 coverage of the original Monument Academy approval, and later served, briefly, as the Town of Monument’s planning director. The officials who shaped the rules now appear before their former colleagues to apply them.

They appear often. In the past two years Vertex has fronted many of the Tri-Lakes area’s contested land fights: the Buc-ee’s travel-center annexation at Interstate 25 and County Line Road; the Monument Ridge East project, 340 homes the commissioners approved in December 2024; its sister Monument Ridge West annexation across the interstate; and a glamping expansion on Highway 83 south of this site, which the Planning Commission recommended denying before the commissioners approved it in June 2024. Dossey’s largest project sits outside the Tri-Lakes entirely — the Karman Line annexation east of Colorado Springs, a roughly 1,800-acre flagpole reach for more than 6,500 homes. The City Council approved it in January 2025; opponents then forced it onto a ballot, and in June 2025 city voters rejected it by more than four to one. A resident, writing against the Highway 83 rezoning, drew the line herself: stop “changing the rules to accommodate campaign contributors and past colleagues now with Vertex.”

The politics on the calendar

The timing is its own subplot. The parcel sits in Commissioner District 1, whose current commissioner, Holly Williams, is term-limited and has been forwarding constituent objections to staff. The seat is open, and on the ballot. The man who has chaired the Monument Academy board for five of the past six years, Ryan Graham, is running for it. The Planning Commission hears the rezoning on June 18; the Board of County Commissioners is set to decide it on July 23 — months before a new commissioner would take office in January.

It should be said plainly what the record does and does not show. The development is named for the school, abuts it, runs on the school’s access road and is justified in the application partly by its proximity to the campus. But the land belongs to Dunston, not the academy; a search of the school board’s records turns up no action, agreement or position on the rezoning; and there is no evidence that Graham has any role in, or financial stake in, the project. What remains is a matter of appearance and timing — a candidate who presides over the institution the project is named for and abuts, seeking a seat on the body that will rule on it before he could be sworn in. Readers can weigh that for themselves.

Reached for comment, Graham said that neither he nor any entity he is affiliated with has “any ownership interest in, financial interest in, or other involvement in” the development, MA Infrastructure or the project, and that while he is “personally acquainted with Matt Dunston,” the acquaintance “does not constitute a business relationship.” The academy’s board, he said, “has not taken any position on, nor has it participated in, the rezoning application,” and the land left the school’s hands “pursuant to a development agreement that was approved and executed before my tenure” on the board. He declined to take a position on the rezoning itself, citing the quasi-judicial role a commissioner plays; if elected, he said, he would “fully disclose” any circumstances that might raise a question about his participation in matters involving the academy or adjacent land and “seek guidance from the County Attorney” on whether to recuse.

What happens next

The Planning Commission’s public hearing begins at 9 a.m. on June 18 in the second-floor hearing room at 2880 International Circle; county records schedule the Board of County Commissioners to take it up on July 23. Both hearings allow public comment, in person or in writing through the county’s EDARP portal. The county’s rezoning criteria are specific: general conformance with the master plan, compliance with state statute, compatibility with existing and permitted land uses and zone districts in all directions, and whether the site is suitable for the proposed zoning. On that last point, the applicant’s own traffic study is pointed — the intersection at the development’s gate, where Highway 83 meets Highway 105 and Walker Road, already operates at a failing level of service during the morning and school-afternoon peaks, before a single new unit is built.

The Monument Independent sought comment from Matt Dunston and MA Infrastructure, from Vertex Consulting Services and Craig Dossey, from Ryan Graham, and from El Paso County Planning and Community Development. Ryan Graham responded, and his comments are reflected above; Matt Dunston and MA Infrastructure, Vertex Consulting Services, and El Paso County Planning and Community Development did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

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Sources and documents

The county file (P261 / P262). Read the application, staff report, traffic study, water letter, and public comments through the county’s development-review portal: El Paso County development review (search “P261” / “P262”) · El Paso County Planning & Community Development.

Property and business records. Assessor — Tract A, parcel 6115011001 · Assessor — Tract B, parcel 6115010031 · Colorado Secretary of State business database (MA Infrastructure LLC, ID 20191394934; Vertex Consulting Services LLC, ID 20221785139).

News coverage. Monument-area residents question developer’s role in new charter school — Gazette, 2019 · Large residential zoning change near Monument approved — Gazette, 2024 · Nina Ruiz takes role as new Monument planning director — Gazette, 2022 · Buc-ee’s applies to El Paso County to expand parcel — OCN, 2026 · Monument glamping expansion approved — OCN, 2024 · Karman Line annexation rejected by voters — Gazette, 2025.