Read the file yourself

Plain language

Words the City uses

Land use has its own vocabulary. These are the terms this site uses most.

Finding

A written decision the City has to reach on the evidence in front of it before it can approve something. Mentioning a subject in a staff report is not a finding.

Evacuation model

A traffic study of people evacuating instead of commuting. Engineers call the result an evacuation time estimate. It runs the road network in simulation software, loads it with the households who would leave at once, and reports how long clearing them takes. Transportation consultancies do this work under contract. The City can require it as a condition with a defined scope and schedule.

Preliminary plan

The detailed layout the City approves before any lots can be created. It settles the roads, the lot lines and the grading.

Plat, and final plat

The legal map that creates the lots. Once a final plat is recorded, the lots exist and can be sold.

Sub-area plan

The guiding plan for one piece of a larger master-planned development.

Referral

When the City sends an application out to other agencies, such as the fire district, the water district, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the state geologist, CDOT and the County, and asks each for written comments. Those comments are advice. The City decides what to do with them.

Will-serve letter

A letter from a water district saying it expects to be able to serve a development. State law lists six things such a letter has to contain. It is evidence the City may weigh, and it sets no water aside.

Level of service, or LOS

A report-card grade traffic engineers give an intersection or a single turn, from A down to F. F means long waits and queues that do not clear.

Factor of safety

How much stronger a slope is than the bare minimum needed to stay in place. A factor of 1.0 sits exactly at the edge of failing. Engineers generally want 1.5 for permanent slopes carrying homes and roads.

Big game pinch point

A place Colorado Parks and Wildlife maps where animal movement is squeezed into a narrow path. Building on one cuts a route that has no easy replacement.

No Surface Occupancy

Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s recommendation against building on a particular piece of ground.

Quasi-judicial

A decision a council or commission has to make on the evidence presented at the hearing, with an open mind, and not on private conversations or outside research.

Executive session

A closed portion of a public meeting. Colorado law allows them for specific purposes, including giving instructions to negotiators. No formal action or decision may be taken in one.

Development agreement

A contract between a city and a developer setting out who builds and pays for what. It is negotiated rather than decided at a public hearing.

Vested rights

The right to keep building under the rules that applied when a project was approved, even after the rules change. Under C.R.S. § 24-68-103 they attach only once the City approves a site-specific development plan.

Defensible space

The cleared and managed ground around a building that gives it a chance in a wildfire.

CORA

The Colorado Open Records Act. It lets any member of the public ask a government body for its records.

Acre-foot

Enough water to cover an acre one foot deep, about 326,000 gallons. Roughly a year’s supply for two or three Front Range households.

Section A

The four applications

Each one is a separate file with its own case number. Together they would plan, divide and build out this part of the bluffs. The developer is not asking for a rezoning.

The City decides each application separately. A comment on one is not automatically part of the file on the others, so file on each application your comment touches. Each project page has its own comment form.

The full list of pending City applications, including these four, is published at cityoflonetree.com/projects/.

Latest

Planning Commission hearing packet, October 2026

This is the latest submittal on the road (SB25-0014), posted for the October 13 hearing. It includes the September 4 ground study, the State geologist’s August 20 letter, staff’s August 21 review letter and a new maintenance plan. The houses are not part of it.

All documents are on the City’s project page for the road.

Section C

First round of comments, December 2025

This is the original submittal. Compare it against the March 2026 revised packet to see what the developer changed after the agencies commented.

Section E

Plans, codes and laws that govern this decision

The City measures a preliminary plan, the detailed layout it approves before lots can be platted, against the standards below.

The Lone Tree Municipal Code, including the sections cited above, is published in full at library.municode.com.

CDOT sources for the I-25 figures

The I-25 numbers we cite on the case come from these two CDOT sources.

The closure count we give on the case page was compiled from CDOT closure announcements and news reports over January 2025 to September 2026. We have not found a single published tally, so treat it as our count rather than CDOT’s.