CASTLE PINES NORTH — Mayor Maureen Shul sees new development sprouting up and marvels at her upstart community.
Castle Pines North celebrates its first birthday as a city today. It’s been a heck of a year for a city that a year ago had no local representation whatsoever.
“We started from scratch with nothing in place and we had to, in effect, build an entire municipal government,” Shul said. “After 12 months, we are in excellent shape in terms of putting things in place that serve the community.”
Residents of Castle Pines North, where development started 25 years ago, voted in 2007 to become a city, but it wasn’t official until the council and Shul took office a year ago.
Today, Castle Pines North has 3,400 homes in Douglas County, 10,000 residents and a commercial strip along Castle Pines Parkway that is expected to bring in more than a million dollars annually in sales-tax revenue.
In the past year, Douglas County provided services, such as public works, to Castle Pines North. As of today, the private company CH2M Hill will take over those services. South Metro Fire Rescue and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office will still serve Castle Pines North.
There is no city hall (council meetings are held in the local community center), and city officials still do most government business out of their homes.
But Castle Pines North has secured the Lagae Ranch development that calls for 600-700 new homes. Ground has been broken there for a new church, school and park.
“We’ve had tremendous feedback from the citizens,” Shul said. “When things are being worked on, they don’t see all that work behind the scenes sometimes, but it’s happening.”
Count Castle Pines North resident Mark Smith among them. He’s still waiting to see a public works vehicle with the city’s logo on it.
“I knew they had incorporated, but I haven’t really noticed anything,” said Smith, who was walking his dogs on a recent day. “Zero.”
Smith and others will probably see concrete changes in the near future.
The city hopes to secure a facility for its public works department. And it plans to ask voters within the next year to make Castle Pines North a home-rule charter city, meaning it would pass its own ordinances and rules instead of being governed by state statutes.
Ted Lohr was against incorporation and still is. He says things were just fine when Douglas County ran the show, and he believes the costs of running a government outweigh the benefits of more control.
“I think we are going to have money issues for a long time to come,” Lohr said.
While Castle Pines North is celebrating, its neighbor, Castle Pines Village, is still that — a village.
Residents had talked about incorporating several years ago, and the two communities had worked out an agreement to share revenue made from the businesses along Castle Pines Parkway if both became official cities.
But that talk has stalled, said Jerry Raskin, president of Castle Pines Village Homes Association.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
