Castle Rock OKs petition against Promenade project

A prairie dog on the Bear Creek Trail in Lakewood on Dec. 29, 2012. (Seth A. McConnell, Your Hub file)

A pair of Castle Rock residents have been cleared to circulate a petition aimed at freezing construction of the Promenade at Castle Rock retail development.

Town Clerk Sally Misare on Tuesday certified the petition that was submitted to by residents Keith Lattimore-Walsh and Linda Van Nostrand. The petition, according to a town news release, seeks to overturn the Town Council's approval of the development plan and new zoning rules for the 166-acre Promenade property, located north of the Outlets at Castle Rock between Interstate 25 and U.S. 85.

The Town Council on March 3 unanimously approved plans that call for as much 1 million square feet of retail space and 350 housing units to be built on the property. A vast majority of people who spoke at that meeting, including Lattimore-Walsh and Van Nostrand, urged that the project be voted down, largely because its construction will lead to the extermination of a large prairie dog colony.

The clerk's approval of the petition language this week gives supporters until 5 p.m. on April 13 to gather enough signatures from registered Castle Rock voters to force council to either change its vote or push the issue to a referendum. The threshold is 5 percent of town voters as of Tuesday, or 1,945 people, according to town officials.

The Promenade project is being led by Greenwood Village-based Alberta Development Partners. The $177 million project broke ground in November.

Joe Rubino: 303-954-2953, jrubino@denverpost.com or twitter.com/RubinoJC

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Castle Rock OKs petition against Promenade project