Dear Mayor and Members of the Urbandale City Council,

We, the undersigned residents, business owners, and community stakeholders of Urbandale, write to express our strong support for your recent decision to deny the land use amendment at Northwest 100th Street and Northpark Drive. We explicitly urge the City Council not to reconsider or approve any future applications that would pave the way for a Buc-ee’s Travel Center or similar large-scale corridor commercial development at this specific location.

While we recognize the economic development efforts of our region, the 100th Street interchange is fundamentally inappropriate for a mega-convenience store of this magnitude. We ask you to stand firm on your previous vote due to the following critical concerns:

• Severe Traffic Congestion: The 100th Street corridor and Northpark Drive already handle significant local commuter traffic. Introducing a facility designed to draw over 5 million visitors annually will overwhelm our local street network and create dangerous bottlenecks directly adjacent to the I-35/I-80 interchange.
• Preservation of Planned Land Use: The current "Mixed Use" designation ensures a balanced development pattern that integrates smoothly with nearby neighborhoods. Amending this to "Corridor Commercial" subverts years of deliberate urban planning in favor of transient tourist traffic.
• Safety and Infrastructure Strain: The sheer volume of thousands of additional personal vehicles passing through a localized area daily poses a direct safety risk to local motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, while accelerating the wear and tear on Urbandale's municipal infrastructure.
• Environmental Impact: A massive fueling station with dozens of pumps introduces heightened risks of urban runoff, light pollution, and localized smog, directly impacting the quality of life for neighboring residential communities.
• Harm to Local Businesses: A corporate giant like Buc-ee's will undercut and overshadow the small, independent businesses that have already invested in Urbandale.  Furthermore, prioritizing local and Iowa-based businesses keeps land use revenue within our city and state.
• Loss of Community Character: Urbandale is a family-oriented suburb, not a highway pit stop. A development of this scale permanently alters the quiet, safe identity of our city.

Other cities in the metro have already expressed a robust desire to host this regional tourist attraction on land better suited for high-volume travel infrastructure. We urge you to let those communities absorb that traffic while keeping Urbandale's 100th Street interchange safe, accessible, and community-oriented.

Thank you for your initial leadership in protecting our city's long-term vision, and we trust you will continue to represent the best interests of Urbandale residents by rejecting any reconsideration of this proposal.