Berthoud Weekly Surveyor | Covering all the angles in the Garden Spot

Town Board debates metro district policy at first 2023 meeting

By: Will Cornelius | The Surveyor | January 13, 2023 | Local News

Berthoud’s Board of Trustees met for their first meeting of 2023 on Tuesday night. All members were in attendance except Sean Murphy.

Sarah Lincoln and Butch Hause were the only speakers during citizen participation. They both thanked the board for their help in making the Newell Farm conservation project a reality over the past year. “Thank you. Thank you, town of Berthoud. And now we have something that the citizens are going to enjoy for a long time,” said Hause.

Next, the board unanimously approved a routine consent agenda. After that, Town Administrator Chris Kirk presented an update on the current draft of the Metro District Service Plan. Staff at the Town of Berthoud have been reviewing and proposing changes to how the town approves and works with metro districts.

Metro districts are allowed by state statutes to collect property taxes to build and maintain public improvements, like roads and sewers. They are often created to assist in funding new housing developments. Metro districts give growing communities and real estate developers another financing option for building new homes.

Other states also have metro districts to help facilitate growth, typically in Western and Southern states which have experienced significant population booms in recent decades. In Colorado, state and federal law require funds raised by metro districts to only be used for public infrastructure or services.

Trustees on the board had many questions and comments for Kirk regarding metro districts. The overriding concern from the board was ensuring that metro districts provide quality public services, have robust self-governance and are financially transparent. Trustees were worried that a developer could over-promise today and then under-deliver decades later.

Kirk assured trustees that there were methods for dealing with rogue metro districts. He said that the town always has the power to deny building permits. If a metro district was neglecting residents or ignoring previous agreements with the town, the town could then halt any new building projects. Kirk said this tactic almost always forces the other party into compliance.

Trustee Jeff Butler was the most vocal about his opinion on metro districts, at one point asking if the town could ban metro districts entirely. Charles Norton, an attorney with metro district experience said that would not be possible. He said that it is up to the board to decide on approving metro districts, but that they cannot refuse to hear an application for one.

Debated stretched over two-and-a-half hours about metro districts and their legal framework. One area the board appeared to be moving towards was requiring metro districts to agree to more requirements and criteria before approval that would align them with town interests. But no firm decisions were made about metro district policy moving forward.

The last agenda item of the meeting was a fix to the building code ordinance passed at the end of 2022. Kirk told the board that the codes accidentally forgot to include figures for the wind speed table. The figures and table dealt with technical requirements for things like attaching roofs to buildings and mitigating risks from high winds.

To remedy this, the board will have to hold a public hearing on a new ordinance, repeal the previous one and then approve the updated one. The board will hold a public hearing on the corrected building code ordinance at its Feb. 14 meeting.

With the meeting stretching over three hours, the Trustees extended the meeting to finish individual reports. The most notable report came from Mayor William Karspeck, who detailed the upcoming review of Town Administrator Kirk’s job performance by trustees.

The next regular meeting of the Board of Trustees for the Town of Berthoud will be held on Jan. 24.

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