Buc-ee’s, the super-sized Texas chain of travel stores, has temporarily withdrawn its application to annex land for a new location into the small town of Palmer Lake.

“We encountered a technical issue with the original application. To ensure compliance, we will be submitting a new application soon,” said Stan Beard, Buc-ee’s director of real estate and development, in a statement Friday.

Initial application would have brought the roughly 30-acre parcel near Interstate 25 and the El Paso County-Douglas County line into Palmer Lake via a “flagpole” annexation of a thin line of land connected to the town about 3 miles away.

The plan for Colorado’s second Buc-ee’s location produced major uproar in the small town and in Monument, its larger neighbor to the south. Some residents raised concerns about traffic, water availability and the preservation of the historic community in public meetings on the project.

After the Palmer Lake board of trustees determined the project’s legal eligibility in December, the next steps were submission of impact reports. The town committed to contracting three of its own reports analyzing the fiscal, traffic and water impacts of the project.

The first report on traffic was released last month and concluded that the travel center would produce minimal impacts to nearby roads.

Independent study shows minimal traffic impacts for proposed Palmer Lake Buc-ee’s, some skepticism follows

Integrity Matters, a political watchdog group which has been involved in the opposition to Buc-ee’s since the plan was announced late last year, claimed the withdrawal vindicated its legal complaints against Palmer Lake.

“Had that all been kosher, they would have forged ahead,” said Integrity Matters co-founder Dana Duggan.

The group, along with other nonprofits, filed a lawsuit in El Paso County District Court in January with the town over its handling of a December board of trustees meeting in which the Buc-ee’s annexation request was determined to meet legal requirements for eligibility.

The suit claimed a long list of grievances, including that the annexation application was deemed eligible despite not meeting state requirements. It also claims the town violated the constitutional rights of the public in attendance at the crowded meeting.

The Palmer Lake trustees pushed back on allegations in a public statement posted to the town’s website on the same day the lawsuit was filed.

“As a result of the process followed in considering whether the property is eligible to be annexed, the Town believes it provided a full and fair hearing and is not aware of any violations of open meeting or other laws or regulations,” the statement read.

A meeting date to vote yes or no on the annexation itself, a decision at the discretion of the board of trustees, has not yet been set.

Buc-ee’s representatives have not yet provided a date when the annexation would be back under consideration for the town or how the application would change in the intervening time.