Del Camino – Weld County says it wants to be a good caretaker to a 98-square-mile swath of land that may be home to more than 200,000 people in 20 years.
As evidence, officials point to spending $500,000 for a prestigious Denver consulting firm to help draw up plans to make sure the rapid growth in southwest Weld will be orderly.
“We need to be coordinated, and we need to take a systematic and thoughtful approach to all the kinds of issues that come with all that growth,” said Weld County Commissioner Glenn Vaad.
But people and local governments that bump up against Weld County and its growth policies say past experiences have taught them to brace for unchecked sprawl in their backyards.
“It would be great that Weld would at least attempt to plan growth and coordinate with the communities here,” said Mead Mayor Richard Kraemer. “But let’s just say Mead is very suspicious about anything Weld County does.”
Firestone resident Bill Nolan is even more blunt.
“I think they are putting their noses where they don’t belong,” Nolan said. “They are going to let growth just go wild.”
Others are just as wary of Weld County’s designs to expand a 15,000-acre mixed-use development in unincorporated portions of southwest Weld near Interstate 25 that is already home to some of the fastest-growing communities in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The new development would grow to include land surrounding Mead, parts of Firestone and Frederick and just north of Erie. The county is expected to decide by this fall whether to go ahead with the expansion.
The commissioners say no move will be made without several public hearings and extensive work done by Carter & Burgess, a planning and engineering firm. They signed a $498,000 contract in November to gauge the effects of growth in the proposed area.
“They will give us a road map of how we are to go,” said Weld Commissioner Mike Geile.
A variety of issues, including water and sewer demand, police patrols and social service needs will be studied, said Geile.
“We will hopefully learn about the constraints we’ll have to live with, where growth can and cannot go,” he said.
But critics say Weld’s previous attempts at managing growth have been haphazard at best. The existing mixed-used development is a mosaic of fast-food joints, gas stations and small-lot housing developments approved with no regard to the effects on nearby municipalities, say town officials and residents.
They fear an expanded mixed-use development would be an even bigger scar on the landscape.
“Mead is absolutely, violently opposed to the expansion of the MUD,” Kraemer said.
Mead is suing Weld for approving an $8.1 million sanitation district near its town limits.
Weld caused an uproar last summer when it approved placing a four-lane road through St. Vrain State Park to help handle traffic generated by a new high school and 6,000 future homes near Longmont.
Local communities argued the road would ruin the park and cut into the nearly $7.5 million in revenue it generates for local businesses.
Weld County eventually backed off the road proposal. But that didn’t stop Firestone from launching plans to annex the road to keep it out of the county’s hands.
Firestone Mayor Mike Simone said the county has shown it’s not the best steward over development in southwest Weld.
“We would rather do local planning around our borders,” Simone said.
New housing developments approved by the county near Firestone only put more strain on local resources, he said.
“Right now, for instance, it’s a one-way street as far as police coverage, because we back up the Weld sheriff a lot more than they back us up,” Simone said.
Weld planners say communities in southwest Weld have issued far more building permits than the county. They also say buyers are flocking to Weld for homes because a lack of growth restraints makes for a more affordable market.
“Everybody is responsible for growth in that area, and that’s why we want to step up and see that further expansion is done right,” Vaad said.
Weld and those communities eventually will need to set aside their differences and cooperate to best manage the oncoming crush of concrete and homes, said Jeff May of the Denver Regional Council of Governments.
“Heavy growth in that area is inevitable,” May said, “and they have to jointly plan for it.”
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
