Save Surrey Ridge

Is the hillside stable?

City staff required a minimum safety factor of 1.5 and a final geotechnical report before plat approval. The September 4, 2026 report from CTL Thompson, the same vendor, calls its recommendations preliminary, calls 1.3 acceptable, and shows two sections below 1.5 before and during construction. The Colorado Geological Survey’s August 20 review still describes the study as preliminary. The CGS representative confirmed at the October 13 hearing that the CGS has never reviewed whether an alternative road alignment would have produced a safer result. The ground did not change between the submission that failed the City’s standard and the one that passed it. Only the analysis changed. A slope on the same mesa failed two years ago.

What the file says about the ground

Can people get out?

Nobody has produced an evacuation time estimate for this road network. The required analysis would model every household leaving at once. That means the 343 proposed homes, Surrey Ridge, Oak Hills, McArthur Ranch, The Retreat, and the communities along Monarch Road. The City’s code lets it require a study the developer pays for, and an evacuation time estimate answers this question. The developer’s own traffic study shows the I-25 ramp turn already operating at the worst grade traffic engineers assign, before this project exists. The only egress from Surrey Ridge toward that ramp runs through a single-lane underpass. South Metro Fire Rescue’s only letter in the record is conditional and identifies open code violations. The Planning Commission was told at the October 13 hearing that SMFR had approved the project. If an unconditional approval exists, it must be produced for the public record before the Council votes. If it does not, the Council should rely on the letter the fire district actually wrote.

What the file says about getting out

Does the water supply exist?

State law requires the City to find the water supply adequate before it approves the 343 homes. The pump station decision is the time to ask. The City has not made that finding. The Parker Water District manager told his board on December 11, 2025 that the district’s letter “is not a promise or guarantee that Parker Water will provide water and wastewater services to the development.” The pump station the Council is being asked to approve exists solely to deliver water to those unapproved homes.

Are the emergency exits real?

The application has two Emergency Vehicle Access routes. Neither works as an evacuation route. The McArthur Ranch EVA is designated for emergency vehicles only, runs at approximately 10 percent grade, and has been in active use for construction staging throughout the application process. The Surrey Ridge EVA routes residents through a one-way tunnel the applicant left out of its traffic study. That tunnel is required to reach the water pump station now before the Council. Surrey Ridge residents using that exit would be behind an estimated 800 to 1,000 Hillcamp cars heading to the same single-lane road and the same intersection the applicant’s own study shows already failing in the evening rush. Activating this EVA also requires the developer’s consent at the moment of the emergency.

Why the second access belongs inside Lone Tree

Has the Comprehensive Plan been followed?

Lone Tree’s Comprehensive Plan requires the City to afford adjoining communities, including those outside its jurisdiction, an opportunity to review and comment on development in the Residential Plateau area. Surrey Ridge was not formally notified. Surrey Ridge sits a few hundred feet from the property and received no formal notice. The City has produced no written Comprehensive Plan conformance analysis, and plan consistency is an express approval criterion under its code.

What happens to the wells?

Surrey Ridge runs on private wells drawing from an aquifer below the mesa. Each home depends on its well for every gallon it uses, and many residents bought here for that reason. The project would regrade the mesa top, build several detention ponds, and route stormwater away from the slopes. The drainage memorandum does not contain the words groundwater, aquifer, recharge, or well. City staff required a full Army Corps of Engineers wetland delineation for the affected draws twice. The project’s drainage ultimately reaches Cottonwood Creek, a state water. The applicant has not completed one. The well impact question was raised before the Planning Commission in written and verbal comments. It was not addressed. The record still contains no answer.

What the file says about the water

Has the wildlife been studied on land that is actually being used?

Colorado Parks and Wildlife maps a Big Game Pinch Point on this property, a place where animal movement is funneled or constrained. CPW recommends no surface occupancy and no ground development in Big Game Pinch Points. The applicant’s own Wildlife Preservation Plan quotes that recommendation and then proposes development over the area. A golden eagle nest is mapped in the vicinity, with CPW recommending no human encroachment within half a mile from December through mid-July. Prairie dog burrows on the property are potential burrowing owl habitat. Multiple State Wildlife Action Plan Tier 1 bat species are documented on site.

All of those findings rest on a single site visit made August 29, 2023, before the elk rut. Elk rut here from mid-September into October, when a herd is most visible and most tied to one piece of ground. An August visit falls before it. Since that survey, RidgeGate East has added roughly 900 homes and units, plus the City’s Justice Center, an 80-acre park, and a school. Animals displaced from that development now use this land. The wildlife analysis does not reflect it. The City can require a current, full-season survey before it votes.

What the file says about the wildlife