El Paso County commissioners on Tuesday said they were concerned the city of Colorado Springs is asking the county to pay for proposed improvements at an urban renewal site that the city should be funding.

County and city officials said during a work session Tuesday developer RJ Development plans to formally ask the county next month to allocate about $2.6 million in future tax revenues over 25 years to help build a new residential and retail venture on Colorado Springs’ southeast side.

El Paso County to consider allocating $2.6 million to southeast Colorado Springs development

Developers want to build the proposed Hancock Commons on about 20 acres of undeveloped land at the southeast corner of Hancock Expressway and Chelton Road, a site the city has designated as an urban renewal area.

The project calls for constructing about 150 to 180 market-rate apartments and between 72 and 87 market-rate townhomes. There are also plans to build 14,000 square feet of commercial retail space, said Crystal LaTier, El Paso County’s executive director of economic development.

Part of the project also includes realigning Hancock Expressway where it curves south toward Milton E. Proby Parkway. The developer wants to straighten and extend Hancock Expressway from Clarendon Drive east to Chelton Road – a long-sought improvement by city and county officials, Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Authority Executive Director Jariah Walker previously told commissioners.

“The proposed infrastructure, specifically the Hancock Expressway realignment, provides a regional transportation solution and could enable other governing entities to allocate their financial resources to other projects,” LaTier said Tuesday.

The realignment could also benefit a triangular parcel just north of the proposed project, opening up more land that can be developed, Walker added.

“That’s one of the cool things about approving this project – it does have a ripple effect of opening up another developable parcel …,” he said.

Some commissioners were concerned the project may not be the best use of county taxpayer funds, and that the county would be subsidizing a venture the city identified as a lower-priority road project to be funded by the voter-approved extension of the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority’s 1-cent sales tax. 

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Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez said the undeveloped parcel in question was “underutilized and can definitely be put to better use.” But while he supported its development he said the city believed the Hancock Expressway extension was “important enough that they at some point would be funding it.”

“So the city should be funding it, not the county,” Gonzalez said.

Walker said Tuesday no funding has been identified for the lower-priority road projects voters approved on Nov. 8 for improvements to be made between 2025 and 2034 specifically.

Additionally, PPRTA policy stipulates that developers are responsible for public road improvements as part of development costs, he said.

“The intent of PPRTA is not to fund developer roadway obligations,” Walker said.

The city also does not think the project will ever receive PPRTA funding, he said. If funding did become available, it likely would not be for some time, he said.

“If, for some reason, it did get funding tied to it and this project … went forward, then it would benefit the entire community by rolling into another project instead of just hitting this one,” Walker said.

He said this option incentivizes private development on the project.

But asking the county to funnel future tax revenues to the proposed development means Colorado Springs “is asking the county (to pay for public improvements) on behalf of the developer,” Gonzalez said.

Commissioner Carrie Geitner said developers cannot be “paying their way” if the city and county are incentivizing private development.

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“Those two things cannot be simultaneously happening,” she said. “If we are incentivizing, we are subsidizing, and that is not the same thing. … I do get concerned when I see one governmental entity utilizing another governmental entity’s taxing base to fulfill things that they want to do. That continues to be a little bit of my concern around these projects.”

She also wondered if taxpayer funds could be better spent on other projects.

Developers plan to bring their formal request before the Board of County Commissioners at its regular meeting Dec. 20. 

The public meeting will take place at a different location than usual, this time at the Citizens Service Center at 1675 Garden of the Gods Road in Colorado Springs, because of construction at Centennial Hall, LaTier said.

Board agendas are online at https://agendasuite.org/iip/elpaso.