Truck stop plan faces final hurdle

County commission is set to vote on controversial proposal tonight

The most contentious development proposal in recent Santa Fe memory comes to what could be its climax Tuesday night.

The conceptual plan for a Pilot Flying J truck stop and travel center off Interstate 25 south of the city limits will appear before the Santa Fe County Commission — the last procedural hurdle in a land-use application process that began last year and has been accompanied by intense public opposition at every step since.

The county commission decision on the truck stop conceptual plan — 10.41 acres on a trapezoidal, 26.46-acre lot, with a fueling station, more than 130 parking spaces and three fast-food restaurants — follows the vote of the county Planning Commission, which in March unanimously

recommended the proposal be denied. A truck stop is not a permitted use within the county’s Santa Fe Community College District, planning commissioners found.

It was an enormous victory for the hundreds of nearby residents who have organized to oppose what they say would be a dangerous and dirty development marring the view scape of the southern “gateway” to Santa Fe, and a striking defeat for the Tennessee-based trucking giant and its local developer, whose application had previously won the recommended approval of county land-use staff and a neutral hearing officer.

The public interest in the truck stop meetings has compelled the county to relocate normally sparsely attended hearings to

larger venues. Tuesday night’s commission meeting will take place at the gymnasium of Santa Fe High School, where the March planning commission meeting drew more than 250 people.

If the county commissioners were to approve the conceptual plan, the Pilot Flying J developers would be required to submit applications to the county for each of the conceptual plan’s three phases, which would go before public bodies as well. The first, containing the truck stop, would require a permit for a “conditional use” — namely a gas station.

If commissioners reject the plan, it is unclear whether developers would return with an amended plan or take other action.

“As a private company, Pilot Flying J does not disclose details of its new business developments,” a Pilot spokeswoman, Stephanie Myers, wrote in an emailed statement Monday.