El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, will acquire 554 acres of ranch land for $3.75 million as part of a legal settlement, the Gazette reports.

The land purchase will result in the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the foundation of violating state law by secretly lobbying members of then-Colorado governor John Hickenlooper’s staff to kill a controversial proposal for a granite quarry on a portion of the Hitch Rack Ranch. In 2019, El Pomar Foundation paid a confidential $15 million settlement after Transit Mix Concrete alleged that the foundation’s lobbying subverted the legal hearing process and exerted undue influence on deliberations. After the settlement was disclosed, RMBC Group, the holding company of the family who owns the land, sued the foundation, its former president and CEO Bill Hybl, and his son, Kyle Hybl, who succeeded him, alleging that they interfered with the contract the family had reached with Transit Mix Concrete to lease the ranch land to mine it.

As part of the agreement, the land the foundation has acquired — which comprises the upper western portion of 1,432-acre ranch property and is adjacent to the Aiken Canyon Preserve — will be set aside as open space. Separately, El Pomar Foundation is set to receive a bequest of property south of the Hitch Rack Ranch from Harold “Buck” and Barbara Ingersoll, who stipulated that the land be preserved for environmental and educational purposes.

“This ensures that the extraordinary beauty and important natural ecosystems encompassed by the Ingersoll property, Aiken Preserve, and now an ecologically important section of the Hitch Rack Ranch, will be protected for generations to come,” said Kyle Hybl in a statement.

(Photo credit: B Wellensiek via pixabay)