On Jan. 7, the City Council will discuss the future use of metro districts as a financing tool within the city of Longmont. Members of the council will be debating, if and under what circumstances, additional metro districts may be used in residential subdivisions. Metro districts are separate units of government approved by the City Council to operate for the benefit of developers (Longmont currently has only one such district). These districts promote accelerated development by allowing developers of property to use the taxing authority of the special district to finance internal subdivision infrastructure items such as water and sewer lines, streets, sidewalks and storm water systems. In all but one residential development in Longmont, a city of nearly 100,000 population, developers financed these internal costs with their funds or their debt. Metro districts shift these internal costs to future residents via their ability to impose property tax to pay off district bonds and up-fronted developer expenses. Tax collections for metro districts are on top of all property taxes collected by other governments.
In my opinion, this is an important issue for residents to understand. If you are unable to watch the discussion, you can get a comprehensive review of the pros and cons of metro districts, along with a whole list of abuses in Colorado, by reading the three-part series in the Denver Post, along with editorials, letters and guest commentaries. The Longmont library carries back copies of the Denver Post. The above-mentioned series and comments ran from Nov. 24 through Dec. 22, 2019.
All Longmont residents should be concerned about the use of metro districts in residential subdivisions within our city. They will impact us all, even those of us who will never buy a house within a metro district’s taxing authority. They have the ability to divide our community by adding another layer of government onto some residents. These districts have real potential to accelerate the pace of growth, promote urban sprawl and launch expensive annexation wars. In fact, at the Dec. 3, 2019, council meeting, the mayor made a surprise statement that seemed to portend such results by connecting metro districts with urban sprawl and future annexation battles with Firestone. The mayor announced that he and the city manager were in discussions with the owners of the Lifebridge property in Firestone. He indicated the discussions were aimed at enticing the owners to de-annex from Firestone and re-annex to Longmont. The mayor clearly stated that without a metro district the owners of the Lifebridge property would never consider coming back to Longmont.
Many current residents might not be familiar with the long history Longmont has had with the Lifebridge properties being considered for re-annexation. The fastest way to get up-to-speed on the matter is to read Rachel Carter’s four-page story in the Aug. 8, 2010, edition of the Times-Call. The title of the story is “Promised Land: Lifebridge had high hopes for its development plans; now it has let go of most of its properties.” The property in question is currently annexed into Firestone and is located east of Fairview Street, south of Weld County Road 26, north of Colo. 119 and west of the Weld County subdivisions named Elms and Meadow Vale Farms. It is difficult to summarize a lengthy article so I will provide only a few key events and the year the occurred.
On Aug. 14, 2007, after months of staff work, the Longmont City Council approved the Lifebridge annexation ordinance. In January 2008, Lifebridge withdrew its annexation application from Longmont and the City Council vacated the annexation ordinance. In February, 2008, Firestone initiated the planning process to annex Lifebridge’s property. In March, 2008, Lifebridge formally requested annexation into Firestone and thus began a long annexation war between the two municipalities. In June, 2010, the two municipalities signed an agreement to settle the annexation battle. Longmont, the losing party in the lawsuits, paid Firestone $100,000 for legal fees.
I have great difficulty understanding any reason our city would want to re-open an annexation war with Firestone. I see no benefit for Longmont residents. It is possible that under certain circumstances a properly regulated metro district may be appropriate in Longmont. However, in my opinion, one that encourages urban sprawl, increases costs to Longmont residents and initiates another annexation war with Firestone is not one of them.
Gordon Pedrow was Longmont city manager for 19 years, retiring in 2012. He resides in Longmont.
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January 05, 2020 at 08:32PM
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Gordon Pedrow: On metro districts and Longmont annexation wars - Longmont Times-Call
"metro" - Google News
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