By Brendan Henry
The Surveyor

Berthoud’s town Board of Trustees met on Tuesday to receive a Rocky Mountain Conservancy update, discuss the revision of the non-potable water usage fee, short-term rental draft regulations and hold a public hearing for the Legacy Park Metro District Service plan. All trustees except for May Albrecht were present.

The board began by opening up the floor to the public for comment. The first resident complained about light pollution, citing the large TPC light used during July 4th celebrations and asking for the town to work against excessive light pollution. Both Town Administrator Chris Kurtz and Mayor Will Karspeck noted that the town follows a dark sky policy, but could also do more work to limit light pollution.

Another resident is disappointed in the transparency of each town board of trustee candidate’s campaign. The resident does not believe that the candidates have put in enough effort toward public relations. If she had it her way, she says she would postpone the election so the candidates had more time to share their opinions.

One resident would like to see an outdoor bubble for an outdoor pool along with an ice facility at the Richardson Farm property and would urge the board to consider this. Mayor Karspeck mentioned that developments have been paused on the Richardson Farm property until public surveys are reviewed and taken into consideration.

Estee Rivera, executive director at Rocky Mountain Conservancy, provided an informational presentation on the conservancy’s activity. She spoke of a new search and rescue truck for the Rocky Mountain National Park, environmental educational programs for kindergarten through 12th grade that are free of charge, scholarship opportunities that teach skills related to nature, a fire recovery fund to help the ecosystem and the control and management of burns. The Rocky Mountain National Park is looking to become a dark sky national park and is looking to gateway towns like Berthoud to contribute.

The conservancy is concerned with the situation surrounding workforce housing, with much of it having been burnt down in 2020. Another concern Rivera voiced was watershed health in the Kawunchee Valley due to climate change and other factors.

Trustee Chris Kurtz asked Rivera how Berthoud could help. Rivera reaffirmed that the Dark Sky initiative is one, with others including bringing youth to the park and finding the link between Berthoud’s emissions and how they could impact the park.

Following Rivera’s presentation, Director of Water Utilities Ken Matthews informed the board that the non-potable water fee is “too high,” as he put it. Currently, the usage fee is $4.76/1,000 gallons, which is much higher than the actual costs to provide the resource and is greater than the cost per 1,000 gallons for treated water. Matthews proposes to reduce this rate to $2/1,000 gallons, and this usage rate would be approximately 50% of the current potable rate, which is in line with costs and other incentives for non-potable systems.

After Matthews’ presentation, the board unanimously approved Resolution 2024-05—a resolution of the Town of Berthoud adopting an amendment to the 2024 Fee Schedule for the town as provided in the Berthoud Municipal Code to fix the high non-potable water fee.

Tawn Hillenbrand took the stand to initiate an update and discussion on Berthoud’s short-term rental regulations. Members of the community were able to participate in a questionnaire that was available from Feb. 1 to Feb. 16.

About 75% of participants are in support of allowing short-term rentals within the town. About the same number of participants believe that the town should establish a set of regulations for short-term rentals if allowed, just over half of participants indicated that they believe that there should be a cap or limit to the total number of short-term rentals in the town, approximately 25% of participants say that they have no concerns with short-term rentals, and some participants expressed concerns regarding noise, parties, parking, incompatibility and degradation of neighborhoods, trespassing, safety, devaluation of property value, short-term switching to long-term, trash, traffic and conflict with HOAs.

Proposed regulations in the first draft followed what was consistently seen in other surrounding communities. An outlier issue not consistently addressed is limiting short-term rental density, an issue that Hillenbrand says is more complex.

The organization of the draft is based on sections of the town’s development code. Sections include definitions, zoning and use-specific standards. The first subsection proposes short-term rental business license requirements, the second proposes general standards for short-term rentals covers the majority of the regulations, and addresses many of the best management practices and industry-standard requirements, including limitations on short-term rentals to one per property, legal dwelling unit standards, a total occupancy limit, minimum off-street parking requirements and restricting the use of the short-term rental as an event space. The third subsection proposes safety standards.

The seats were filled with people wishing to share their opinions on short-term rentals in town. Opinions differed, some residents shared support and others disagreed or were concerned with the enforcement of the policy once implemented. One resident wants the community to have personal involvement in developing the policy.

The first draft can be located at berthoud.org/178/Planning-Department under the short-term rental regulations project tab.

Alan Pogue, an attorney with Icenogle Seaver Pogue, along with Ed and Kendall Bulleit and Ken Guckenberger, led the discussion on the Legacy Park Metro District service plan. Legacy Park, which will generally be located between Mountain Avenue on the north, Berthoud Parkway on the east, the Harvest subdivision to the south, and Highway 287 North and County Road 17 East to the west, is intended to be both walkable and bikeable, will include a “heritage station” that includes areas dedicated to Berthoud’s history, an aquatic center and a sunset terrace. To coincide with these amenities, the regional trail running through the proposed arboretum is planned to lead to Legacy Park.

There was a public hearing for Legacy Park at 10:50 p.m. with nobody providing comment. The board unanimously approved the plan based on the criteria and evidence provided.