The City Council on Tuesday rescheduled the hearing for the proposed Amara annexation southeast of Colorado Springs limits because of a city error in the public posting of the hearing notice.

The council voted 8-1 to push the first required public hearing from Tuesday, as originally scheduled, to July 23. Councilman Mike O’Malley was the sole no vote.

The postponement was needed because the city did not post the first notice of the hearing in The Gazette for at least 30 days ahead of the hearing date, as is required, Director of Planning and Neighborhood Services Peter Wysocki said.

Developer La Plata Communities, which developed Cordera, Pine Creek, most of Briargate and others, is asking the council to annex 3,200 acres currently located in unincorporated El Paso County to build Amara. The new development is envisioned to include up to 9,500 new homes and 2 million square feet of commercial space, schools, public safety facilities, and parks and open space.

Plans to annex the land, surrounded on three sides by the neighboring city of Fountain, have been years in the making.

From 2019 to 2021, La Plata Communities originally wanted to annex the land into Fountain. Developers said Fountain could not provide the water needed to support the development, but Fountain officials said it would welcome Amara. Fountain developed plans to provide more treated water that could serve Amara, the city said in late 2022, but La Plata Communities cast doubt on Fountain’s plans.

In 2021, Colorado Springs officials approached La Plata Communities about the possibility the land could be added into Colorado Springs boundaries, according to the developers. An initial annexation petition was presented on Oct. 12 of that year and the City Council accepted it on Nov. 23.

From late 2022 to mid-2023, Amara’s potential annexation was thought to be stopped by a water rule Colorado Springs considered in late 2022, then implemented in early 2023. The rule requires Colorado Springs Utilities to have 128% of the water needed to serve existing demand as well as demand from new properties asking to join city boundaries.

In public discussions with City Council about the water rule in the fall of 2022, Utilities staff said Amara would not meet the threshold for annexation because of the water requirement.

After determining estimated citywide water usage had decreased by June 2023, Utilities staff said at that time the city now had the capacity to reliably serve its existing customers and the proposed Amara development.

The Colorado Springs Utilities Board, whose nine members also act as the City Council, voted 6-3 on June 21, 2023, to recommend the annexation.

This year, on March 11, developers again reviewed the proposal during a public informal work session with the City Council.

About a month later on April 16, the Planning Commission voted 7-2 to recommend the council approve the annexation request and proposed Amara master plan.

The City Council on July 23 will hear and formally vote for the first time on the annexation request and master plan.