DOUGLAS COUNTY — After a landslide victory for incorporation Tuesday, a committee in Castle Pines North will begin work next week to plan for an election early next year for a mayor, a city council and other leaders.
The collection of planned housing developments in northern Douglas County becomes the first Colorado community to incorporate since Watkins in 2004 (which disincorporated two years later).
In February, residents of Castle Pines Village, a neighbor to Castle Pines North, will vote on incorporation as well.
To the north, leaders in Highlands Ranch, a community of 90,000 residents, have predicted a vote on incorporation within the next decade.
Castle Pines North becomes the state’s 271st municipality, according to the Colorado Municipal League.
Voters among the 10,000 residents approved incorporation by nearly a 4-to-1 ratio, which amazed Sam Mamet, executive director of the league.
“It’s a very difficult and complicated hurdle to muster the political will to do this,” he said. “And to pass it by that margin tells me they did a very good job.”
Most often, the issue does not pass or even make it to the ballot, Mamet said.
Two communities in El Paso County, Black Forest and Falcon, rejected incorporation this year. Residents of Watkins in Adams County voted to incorporate in 2004, then in 2006 voted to tear up their charter over concerns about growth and the cost of city services.
Mamet said governing a city built from scratch is the hard part for any new community.
Newly elected leaders will have to draw up a budget, contract law enforcement and take care of other services that have been provided by the county.
Those issues tend to deeply divide communities as they work through growing pains. But in the process, they gain local control of those issues, which was the driving force behind the election, said Maureen Shul, president of the Castle Pines North Master Association and leader of the push to incorporate.
“All these many years, so many things have been dictated to us by the county,” she said. “There have been so many things going on around us by bigger communities that people didn’t feel like they had any control over.”
Castle Pines North will need a budget of up to $9.4 million a year to operate the city.
That amount already is generated by taxes that go to the county or homeowners associations for services, proponents have said. The new city also will begin collecting sales taxes from 65 businesses along Castle Pines Parkway.
From the county’s perspective, the loss of Castle Pines North to the tax roll is a wash, according to county spokeswoman Wendy Holmes.
While the county receives $650,000 for law enforcement from taxes on the 3,300 homes in the community, Castle Pines North is expected to contract those services from the county until it begins its own police department.
Six years after incorporation, Centennial continues to contract services from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.
The county also is expected to sell road and bridge work to the new city, resulting in a “zero” impact to county taxpayers, Holmes said.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
Ten newest cities
The last 10 Colorado communities to incorporate:
Source: Colorado Municipal League
