Timnath – An old, black dog limped onto Main Street recently, causing a traffic jam of two cars. A bystander eased the pooch over to some shade trees, and the glacial pace of one of Colorado’s oldest towns commenced once again.
Ask nearly any of Timnath’s 230 or so residents, and they will say they relish their community’s molasses-like metabolism. Slow and steady means you get to know your neighbors, their kids and, in some cases, their kids too.
One recent escapee from life in a nearby city found the coziness of the former sheep and sugar- beet town endearing, said Margaret MacGowan, pastor of Timnath Presbyterian Church, the town’s only house of worship.
“My God, this is just like Mayberry,” she told the pastor.
Timnath may be all smiles, but it’s developing the instincts of a corporate raider.
Not content to be swallowed by a wave of growth that is expected to bring 1 million people into northern Colorado by 2030, little Timnath is carving out its own territory just east of Fort Collins.
The town’s plan, which includes contiguous subdivisions and plenty of open space, is to keep it from falling into a pattern of haphazard development that growth experts say has plagued other communities in northern Colorado.
“If we are going to grow, we want to do it right and not in a piecemeal fashion,” Mayor Donna Benson said. “So really, we just started from scratch.”
Two years ago, the town began annexing 2,675 acres, increasing the town’s size by almost 13 times. The new land will be developed to attract nearly 12,000 people over the next decade.
The town entered into five annexation agreements that require developers to provide their share of public improvements, including roads and open space.
Meanwhile, the town has lured a 204,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter to be built east of the Interstate 25- Harmony Road intersection.
And Timnath may try to grow even more. Leaders are considering whether to extend its borders west of I-25, ignoring an agreement between Fort Collins and Larimer County for the land to be used for the future expansion of Fort Collins.
“That’s excessive to go into a growth-management area that we intend to develop and annex,” said Fort Collins Mayor Doug Hutchinson. “They’re definitely being aggressive.”
As Fort Collins and nearby Windsor continue to grow, Timnath has had to adapt or it would be absorbed by surrounding cities, Benson said.
“Our biggest challenge was figuring how to maintain our culture rather than become Fort Collins East or Windsor North,” she said.
So the town decided to reinvent itself.
Although without a grocery or cable television, residents earlier this year voted for a food tax and to offer free wireless Internet to each of its residents.
The moves were made because growth is inevitable, and Timnath was going to be ready, Benson said.
“But we wanted it to be on our terms,” she said.
The town plans to use sales taxes from Wal-Mart and accompanying shops to develop intersecting loops of trails and open space. Downtown will be renovated but will mirror its 130- year-old history.
Just as important, the growth will pay for a sewer system for the town as well as curbs, gutters and a drainage system that will alleviate standing water and the West Nile virus, Benson said.
She recalls when the town’s $25,000 budget couldn’t pay for filling up a large hole in the middle of downtown.
“People were standing around it and saying, ‘Well, I guess we’ll unincorporate as a town and ask the county for help,”‘ Benson said.
The town now has a growing $860,000 budget.
“And we have options,” the mayor said.
Timnath is smart to recognize that managed growth can be used to the town’s advantage, said Suzette Thieman, regional transportation planning manager for the North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization.
“Timnath is being very heady,” Thieman said.
The organization – which helps coordinate transportation planning in northern Colorado – estimates that the population from north Longmont to Fort Collins will jump 66 percent in 30 years to 729,890 people.
Another 200,000 are expected in southwestern Weld County in the towns of Firestone, Frederick and Dacono over the next 20 years, according to the U.S. census.
“This whole northern region will be the fastest-growing in the state,” Thieman said, adding that people will be attracted by new jobs and lower housing prices.
It took Edie Brooks awhile, but the 44-year Timnath resident eventually decided that growth could be good for a town that uses the same 50-year-old recipe at its annual Ice Cream Social.
“I was anti-growth for a long time and wanted to keep things as they always were,” Brooks said. “But I’m not stupid.”
She and MacGowan are helping put together a Founder’s Day, which will celebrate Timnath’s farming past and introduce newcomers to its legacy.
“To survive, you have to grow,” Brooks said. “So let’s make sure we grow how we want to and not by someone else’s designs.”
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
