Boulder drops opposition to toll road

BOULDER – Boulder City Council on Tuesday approved a proposal that will end the city’s opposition to a controversial toll road project in exchange for assistance purchasing 640 acres of land in Jefferson County and setting it aside as open space.

The council voted 7 to 2 to accept a plan that will have Boulder put $2 million in money from the open space fund toward an effort to acquire undeveloped land on Colorado Highway 93 near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

Boulder and Jefferson counties both support the proposal, and they respectively will allocate $2 million and $5.1 million to the purchase.

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The land is owned by the Colorado State Land Board, which wants to sell it for $9.92 million, according to the city’s staff report that was submitted to the council. Lafarge North America Inc. has leased the mineral rights, which it would sell for $2 million, the report said.

The report calculates a $2.5 million gap in the funds available and the final purchase price. The purchasers plan to support Lafarge’s application to receive $2.8 million from the state natural resource damages fund.

The intent of the purchase is to transfer the land to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which would add it to the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

The deal also means the city of Boulder will no longer oppose the construction of the Jefferson Parkway, a 10-mile toll road that would run from Colorado Highway 128 to Colorado Highway 93. Jefferson County, Arvada and Broomfield support the project and have formed a public authority to find a private company that would design, finance, build and operate the toll road.

Golden and Superior are among the communities opposing the project.