The Colorado Springs City Council will consider a new requirement for all four of the city’s utilities services that could further determine how and when the community grows.

Among several proposed changes to city code governing annexations and water service requirements, the City Council is scheduled to formally consider next month a provision that Colorado Springs Utilities has a surplus in capacity and resources “across all Utilities’ service lines for the foreseeable future” in order to supply new properties looking to come into city boundaries.

The prospective condition comes just over a year after the council approved a controversial water rule in January 2023 that compels the city-owned utility to have 128% of the water necessary to serve existing demand and the projected demand from new properties.

“With increased regulation (of utilities), electricity is more of a scarce resource, and same with gas. We want to make sure that when annexations come in that we’re evaluating all four services — not just water and wastewater,” said Renee Congdon, the utilities division chief in the City Attorney’s Office.

Unlike the water rule, the proposal does not quantify the amount of gas and electricity that must be available to serve existing and projected demand from properties looking to join the city.

Congdon presented the changes to the City Council during a work session on Monday. They require two votes from the council; the board is scheduled to make its first vote at its regular meeting April 9. The second vote could be held at the board’s regular meeting April 23.

Most of the recommended changes are intended to update the code’s language to match existing practices when officials consider annexation requests or agreements to annex property in the future, at the city’s discretion.

Many of the changes will also reorganize the code so it is more logical and flows better, Congdon said.

For example, one suggested change that updates the document’s language to mirror practice states that as the city grows, officials are not obligated to reserve wastewater capacity for properties looking to annex into Colorado Springs. Water capacity is currently covered in the code.

Other recommended updates include provisions that annexors must provide and now obtain all necessary utility easements to serve their property, and that annexors must transfer to Colorado Springs all water rights that may be used on the property, such as shares in a ditch company — not just groundwater rights. The City Council may approve exceptions to this proposed rule by resolution, Congdon said.

A change to the section of code governing water service would allow the Colorado Springs Utilities CEO to decide, with approval from the Utilities board whose nine members also make up the City Council, not to provide one or some of its four services to a property.

This could be for legal reasons, such as it would create a breach of contract, or because doing so would not be in the utility’s best interest based on financial and risk analyses or proof from the property owner the land does not need or already has service.

Another proposed update would remove the requirement in the new water rule that the Colorado Springs Utilities board must recommend approval of water extension for properties that want to annex.

Even if the Utilites board does not recommend the water extension, the request to annex must still come before the City Council for a vote under Colorado law.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have that intermediate step,” Congdon said. “Any time we’re extending water service, it’s going to come to City Council.”

Another change to the water ordinance would remove the requirement that at least 25% of the perimeter of the area proposed for annexation is contiguous with the city.

Colorado law already requires the city to process annexation applications if at least one-sixth of the perimeter of the area proposed for annexation is contiguous with city boundaries.

“What we’ve learned over the last year is if you have one-sixth contiguity, you can change how you draw the map to reach 25% contiguity. It’s just a matter of math and angles,” Congdon said.

With the state law in play, Colorado Springs could “end up with different maps of the same annexation and it creates confusion,” she said.

Documents related to the proposed changes are linked on the council’s March 11 agenda, which is available online at coloradosprings.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.

The items are 7.C. through 7.G.