Years-long plans to bring thousands of acres of sprawling prairie southeast of Colorado Springs into city boundaries and build up to 9,500 new homes inched forward Tuesday.

In a 7-2 vote the planning commissioners supported La Plata Communities’ proposal to annex approximately 3,200 acres currently located in unincorporated El Paso County and surrounded on three sides by the neighboring city of Fountain, then build the master-planned mixed-use community of homes and commercial space called Amara.

Commissioners in favor of recommending the City Council approve the proposal said the development would support the area’s military servicemembers and their families, as well as future regional growth, with much-needed housing.

“This is in an area that needs support for the military. … We need housing desperately in Colorado Springs,” Commissioner Marty Rickett said. “… The only way to bring (housing costs) down is to increase our inventory.”

El Paso County expects to grow to about 1 million residents by 2050, or by another 250,000 people, developers said as the commission considered their proposal over three and a half hours. Colorado Springs will need to annex additional land to meet the estimated 34% increase in population expected over the next 26 years, they said.

“Amara is positioned to meet the demand by providing critical housing stock and associated commercial activity for approximately 9% of the projected growth,” said Cody Humphrey, the director of planning for La Plata Communities.

The development’s mix of neighborhoods, housing types, and a range of commercial space, schools, public safety facilities and open space will create a sense of community, he said.

The project is also estimated to generate $1.8 million in annual revenues for Colorado Springs after full buildout because of additional property and sales taxes that come along with annexation, developers said. Amara is planned to be constructed over 24 years in four phases.

Commissioners Scott Hente and James McMurray, who voted against the proposal, questioned whether the annexation was a logical extension of Colorado Springs boundaries and if it would strain local public safety resources.

If annexed into Colorado Springs, Amara would be a “flagpole” annexation along Bradley Road that lies within city boundaries, which functions as the pole or connection to the city.

That section of the development along Bradley Road is split from the rest, the largest part, that is interrupted currently by state land and touches Fountain boundaries.

“It feels like we’re really pushing the envelope. If I was on the outside of this and … saw the city boundary like this, I would probably assume there was some funky decision-making going on,” McMurray said.

Noting he liked many aspects of the proposal, McMurray said he couldn’t support the developer’s argument for its contiguity. “Ultimately, leapfrogging this far into the county today, at this point, doesn’t feel like a totally logical decision as it relates to capital improvements or ability to provide services,” he said.

Though Colorado Springs Police Department Deputy Chief Mary Rosenoff said city police can reliably serve Amara, Hente wondered if the department would be able to do so once Amara is fully built out decades from now.

The Police Department has for years struggled with staffing and retention challenges, leaving it well under its full authorized strength of 818 sworn officers, but the department expects by September to reach those numbers, Rosenoff said.

“We will be at full strength based on our current size. Now, increase our population and I worry about our ability to increase police, especially because we are a fiscally-strained community,” Hente said.

Fountain officials in 2022 also raised concerns their law enforcement and fire resources would be strained by the new development, requiring Fountain police officers and firefighters to intervene in emergencies. No representatives from Fountain spoke Tuesday.

Commissioner Andrea Slattery said the proposal fits within Colorado Springs’ master plan guiding future development and will give future generations a place to call home.

“How do we serve the needs of our military, the needs of our kids and their kids, and give them a place to be and call home? This is an area of interest that has been identified. … I think the area can and will become more contiguous (with current city boundaries), even though the path to get there seems like a stretch in some ways,” she said.