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Tag: Land Use

Who decides where power lines go in Colorado? Meet CETA, the unelected authority
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Who decides where power lines go in Colorado? Meet CETA, the unelected authority

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Worried about land use for energy infrastructure? Save some time to watch CETA. There has been a lot of attention paid to Xcel Energy and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) over where and how electric infrastructure will run in this state.See, for example, Polis encouraging his cronies at the PUC to take up the appeal over Xcel's Power Pathway through Elbert and El Paso in an October 2025 newsletter linked first below for an example.There is another unelected board in this state that does similar work with far less news coverage, however.The second link below is to a 2021 bill (SB21-072) that does a whole lot of things.Screenshot 1 (from the bill's fiscal note) shows you what this bill does with regard to...
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Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Acquiring the Lake Fork Ranch to expand “conservation opportunities”. I saw an interesting press release from our Governor recently. It’s linked first below.Quoting:“The Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners (State Land Board) has approved the acquisition of the approximately 800-acre Lake Fork Ranch, located just west of Leadville in Lake County.”Governor Polis, DNR Director Dan Gibbs, and State Land Board Director Nicole Rosmarino all gushed about the new acquisition. To save space, I attached their quotes from the press release as screenshot 1. The quotes here, touting success for rural communities (Polis) and preserving agricultural use (Gibbs), put me in mind of an earlier rundown of the Nat...
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EPA Moves To Clarify Water Rules After Years Of Costly Confusion and Federal Overreach
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The Federalist, Approved, National

EPA Moves To Clarify Water Rules After Years Of Costly Confusion and Federal Overreach

By: Beth Brelje | The Federalist The soon-to-be-replaced significant nexus rule meant a ditch in a rainstorm or pooling water that occurs only in the rainy season could be grounds for the federal government preventing land use. The Trump administration is about to curb an overzealous Obama-era environmental regulation by revising the definition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin and Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, introduced a proposed WOTUS rule change Monday that is meant to establish a clear, durable definition of the rule that won’t be changed every time a new administration comes in. There will be 45 days of public comment on the propos...
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Colorado’s “wildlife threat” plan could threaten agriculture instead
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s “wildlife threat” plan could threaten agriculture instead

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I smell a Rosmarino I had a couple readers bring a recent US Forest Service (USFS) draft assessment about the Comanche National Grasslands (SE Colorado) to my attention. I didn’t have time to get to it, but I was happy to see that Rachel Gabel of the FencePost did. The reality is that she did a better job than I could have hoped to. Her lengthy rundown on the issue is linked below and is well worth reading. This is particularly the case if you are worried about efforts at conservation and species restoration spilling over into (or being used intentionally for) a way to stop other uses of public lands. I’ll leave it to you to get the details, but from what I read, this assessment smacks of the kinds of rewilding/co...
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Religious Freedom and Property Rights Collide in Teller County over “Illegal” Greenhouse
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, Local

Religious Freedom and Property Rights Collide in Teller County over “Illegal” Greenhouse

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun A court battle over the greenhouse hinges on religious freedom, conflict of interest and the state Farm Stand Act. A battle between a Divide couple who built a greenhouse next to their home and Teller County commissioners who want them to tear it down has moved to the courthouse. Commissioners have sued Virginia and Zac Loop, seeking a judge’s order to force the couple to dismantle the 2,856-square-foot rectangular greenhouse where they had planned to harvest mangoes, avocados and other fruits and vegetables that don’t grow at 9,200 feet. The county is seeking $2,000 in initial fees plus $200 per day for every day the greenhouse has stayed up since the Teller County Community Development Department ordered the Loops to take it down. So fa...
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Lord Polis now plans your town through ‘strategic growth’ mandates
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ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

Lord Polis now plans your town through ‘strategic growth’ mandates

By Scott K. James | Commentary, ScottKJames.com One smart post about Colorado land-use policy sent me digging – what I found says a lot about where the state is really heading. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – being a Weld County Commissioner has its perks, and I’m not just talking about the bad coffee and the occasional angry email in ALL CAPS. I’ve had the good fortune to meet some dangerously smart, surprisingly cool people in this gig. Case in point: Chris Richardson. Chris and I crossed paths back when he was repping Elbert County as a County Commissioner. Then, in a moment of what I can only assume was temporary insanity, he decided to run for the Colorado House. Somehow, the voters in HD 56 took the bait, and now he’s down at the Capitol, actually doing the job ...
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Six cities sue Colorado over zoning and parking laws as state stays silent
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State, Approved, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Six cities sue Colorado over zoning and parking laws as state stays silent

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice “As of this writing we have not heard back from the State.” That’s how Greenwood Village Mayor George Lantz summed up the status of a lawsuit the six Front Range cities filed in May against the state of Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis, the Department of Local Affairs and its executive director, Maria De Cambra. The case targets two 2024 laws—HB 24-1313 and HB 24-1304—that, according to the cities, trample Colorado’s constitutional guarantee of Home Rule. The mayors say the fight is about constitutional rights, not political turf wars. “Contrary to some criticisms, the current fight is not based on party politics… Our residents deserve to have a voice about land use in their own communities and neighborhoods,” they wrote in a joint open July 14 let...
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Kerber: How Colorado’s density push is an attack on the single-family home
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The Gazette, Approved, Commentary, State

Kerber: How Colorado’s density push is an attack on the single-family home

By Dave Kerber | Commentary, The Gazette Our neighborhoods and communities are faced with a challenge to the very character of the place we have chosen to live. We live in a unique and astonishing place. People flock to Colorado because of our blue skies, fresh air and mountains. Coloradans have no desire to be New York City. These are two distinct and very different lifestyle choices. Yet, those in charge of Colorado at the moment want to bring that New York density here to Colorado — to change forever what makes Colorado such an incredible place to live and work. As a species, we have always wanted to live and work in larger spaces. It’s human nature. Two hundred years ago, it was common for families to live in a one-room cabin. One hundred years ago, it was normal to have 2-3 peop...
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The Rule 211 gamble: How two towns used Colorado law to effectively shut down an oil company’s core assets
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, State, Top Stories

The Rule 211 gamble: How two towns used Colorado law to effectively shut down an oil company’s core assets

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Buried wells, sworn affidavits and a state determined to make an example. This is the opening chapter of a three-part series on one oil and gas company’s final stand—and what the documents and data actually reveal. Start with the towns. Stay for the verdict. Start with the towns. Stay for the verdict. In September 2024, the cities of Dacono and Frederick uploaded a PDF to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission’s (ECMC) filing system. It was short, simple—and explosive. The two municipalities weren’t asking for a cleanup, a fine or a negotiated fix. They were asking the state to order the permanent plugging and abandonment of 45 wells operated by K.P. Kauffman Company (KPK). Their argument relied on Rule 211, a provision historically u...
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O’Donnell: Colorado’s new wildlife commission will conserve everything—except common sense
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, Commentary, State, Top Stories

O’Donnell: Colorado’s new wildlife commission will conserve everything—except common sense

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The Democratic Party swept to power in Colorado in the 2018 general election (the first time since 1936) under the guise of being a progressive party with the best interests of all Coloradans at heart. When they assumed office they embraced, en masse, the philosophy of the RadicalxChange movement, which—depending on your level of cynicism—shares some unsettling parallels with those catchy World Economic Forum slogans about how we’ll all “own nothing and be happy” by 2030. (No, that line’s not in the RadicalxChange handbook, but the vibe isn’t far off.) The movement also espouses adopting a “more democratic” concept for elections known as quadratic voting. Colorado was THE first test case for quadratic voting EVER in the...
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