Changes in Super Slab bill unconstitutional, attorney says

DENVER - A bill that would wipe the proposed Super Slab toll road off the books and require the highway’s developers to start over on their plans is unconstitutional because it retroactively tightens the rules, an attorney told a House committee Tuesday.

Transportation and Energy Committee members delayed a vote on HB 1343 until at least Thursday while they consider a host of questions on the measure by Rep. Debbie Stafford, D-Aurora.

Stafford’s proposal would remove all mention of corridors for not-yet-built toll roads from county records and would require owners to restart under a stringent process in which they must prove a project’s financing before a corridor becomes public record. It would also require companies to prove they own railroad equipment before registering to build a railroad, as owners of the proposed Prairie Falcon Parkway Express — the technical name of the Super Slab — have.

The bill is the latest in a four-year effort to block the proposed road planned within a 210-mile-long, 3-mile-wide corridor that encompasses 6,526 properties in seven counties, including 1,425 parcels in eastern El Paso County.

Landowners say that even though the road’s owners have not made an effort to buy property or lay concrete 22 years after they proposed the highway, they have deflated property values in its way by 25 percent and left people unable to sell or refinance their homes.

Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, introduced a measure that would only remove notices of the corridor from the property titles of those within it. But a coalition of activists said it did not go far enough, and the bill remains on hold. Stafford’s more far-reaching proposal would clear titles immediately, make it more difficult for Super Slab developers to plan the road and remove the railroad status that could allow them to use eminent domain to condemn land.

Attorney David Foster, who represents the highway company, testified Tuesday that the removal of the registered three-mile corridor would be illegal retroactive legislation. It’s illegal, he said, because road owner Ray Wells has invested more than $500,000 in the project and, therefore, has the exclusive right to develop a road in the corridor. The $500,000 threshold for exclusivity was part of a 2006 bill that was the last measure to try to slow down the development of private toll roads.

Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, countered that Foster could only claim the bill was infringing on Wells’ vested rights if he actually had bought land in the corridor, which he has not.

Rick Brown, a board member of the High Plains Coalition for Responsible Transportation Policy, said he did not think Super Slab organizers had commenced all the work required of them to get exclusive rights to develop the land.

“At what point do the rights of the citizens in their homes have to be considered?” asked Robert Thomasson, also of the coalition.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com