Residents of northern Weld County might see new construction now that a local water district has given developers the go-ahead to request water services after a three-year hold.
North Weld County Water District stopped real estate development in its tracks in 2021 when it announced a moratorium on tap sales and new requests for water amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a statewide housing craze. Developers’ projects stalled. A growing housing stock halted.
The district’s work began: They had to pull the reins to figure out if they even had enough capacity to serve everyone who wanted water, said Tad Stout, board president for the district.
“We came to a point where we basically felt that, due to the insane amount of growth that northern Colorado’s been experiencing, that we needed to be conservative with how we were developing our water,” he said.
North Weld County Water District’s service area spans miles of hot real estate in Weld County and part of Larimer County. It helps provide water to over 50,000 people, including seven towns and big agricultural operations.
The district was already seeing rapid growth in its service area. Between 2010 and 2020, Weld County’s population grew by over 30%, the second fastest-growing county in the state, according to the county.
The COVID-19 pandemic helped turn a hot market into a “wild” and “insane” one.
Town storage tanks could not keep up with demand. The tanks were supposed to fill at night when less water was being used, but the levels kept dropping, Stout said. The system of pipes was maxed out as people watered their lawns and washed cars, and as feed lots and dairy farmers drew on water supplies.
The master meter dial was just going around and around, he said.
“When you see tanks nearly empty on a summer day … it gives us pause that we should maybe give some extra thought to the pressure that we’re putting on our system,” Stout said.
At the same time, changing regulations in Fort Collins and Larimer County cast uncertainty on a large water project, the NEWT 3 Pipeline, which was meant to carry water across the county and Interstate 25.
If that stalled, there would be no growth, Stout said.
“We were just selling water, you know? We were just selling water to people, and it didn’t seem like there were many questions being asked,” he said. “Basically, our engineers were like, we need to slow down and evaluate what we got going on here.”
“We need to slow down”
The northern Colorado water district is not the only water provider trying to figure out how to meet the demands of a growing population.
The town of Buena Vista estimated it could run out of water for new developments as soon as 2030. In response, it passed a policy in 2023 that ties water use and development to specific community priorities, like more affordable workforce housing.
Across Colorado, cities, towns and industries could face a shortfall of 230,000 to 740,000 acre-feet by 2050, according to the state’s 2023 water plan. One acre-foot roughly equals the annual use of two to three households.
In September 2021, North Weld imposed two moratoriums: It temporarily stopped selling new taps, valves that connect houses to the main system. It also stopped reviewing water requests for newly proposed developments.
“It’s painful,” Stout said. “We inherited the decision-making of boards before us that weren’t probably as … conservative.”
Even towns were subject to the moratorium. If they wanted more water from the district, say, for a 500-home development, it counted as a new application and was stalled.
Some projects were far enough along in planning that they had the option to go forward, Stout said. They had to have the will-serve letter, the off-site infrastructure reports done, the development needed to be permit-ready, he said.
Dollars on the line
That was not the case for Aaron Everitt, a local real estate agent and developer.
Everitt bought a farm off County Road 25 in 2020 and planned to turn it into a nine-lot subdivision.
He had a buyer, a $1.25-million contract and a will-serve letter from the water district. But the project was not far enough along and was put on hold by the moratorium.
He renegotiated with the buyer and came away with a $900,000 contract. The will-serve letter expired.
“It’s a wildly huge amount of land that North Weld services,” Everitt said. “For them to say, we don’t have any services on this land for three years, there were hundreds of people impacted by that.”
Everitt lost more than $300,000, but other developers had millions of dollars on the line, he said.
He needs to complete the monthslong review process by around July or he stands to lose $500,000 more. And he’ll be trying to sell the lots in 2025 rather than 2022, which means sales might take longer, he said.
“I’m talking in numbers that the average person will just be like, ‘Good for you. I’m glad you lost $350,000.’ I understand that, and I’m not even really necessarily complaining about it,” Everitt said. “It’s just what the market did.”
He said he doesn’t want to sound angry: He’s not. It is a risk he runs as part of doing business.
“I need North Weld to cooperate to get me something, so I can’t have it come across that I’m negative about North Weld at all,” Everitt said.
Giving the go-ahead
The water district lifted its moratorium on tap sales in February 2022, but left the development moratorium in place as it started work on a new master plan.
The staff asked the towns in the district’s service area to estimate their water needs over the next few decades. The district mapped its system and identified inefficiencies and which improvements would have the highest bang for the buck.
They upgraded the filters at the Soldier Canyon Treatment Plant, which enabled it to treat more water. In 2018, the water treatment plant’s capacity was 45 million gallons per day. By 2024, it was up to 68 million gallons.
That increased the district’s treated water supply from 16.3 million gallons to 26.5 million gallons of water per day. The NEWT 3 project, which is months from completion, will also boost capacity by 10 million gallons per day.
With these improvements, the district says it can meet future growth needs until around 2035. More improvements are in the works that should allow the district to meet projected demand through 2045, said Eric Reckentine, the district’s general manager.
Concerns about the timeline for the NEWT 3 pipeline were also alleviated when Fort Collins narrowed the scope of its new regulations, known as 1041s because of a regulatory process outlined in House Bill 1041 in the 1970s.
“Council ultimately accepted that project because it was already a done deal. We had already weighed in on it. It was already moving, and we didn’t feel like we’d get a better outcome by bringing that through 1041,” said Kirk Longstein, senior environmental planner for Fort Collins.
North Weld lifted its development moratorium in early November, saying that these improvements increased confidence that they could serve new developments.
“I’m thrilled they’re back online. They’re an important player in northern Colorado,” Everitt said.
New construction is a relief valve for the market, and more housing stock could help with affordability.
Stout said the moratorium might have been painful, but it was needed.
“Sitting on that board and making those decisions — based on the information that we had at our disposal at that time — I believe we did the best thing for our customers, 100%,” Stout said. “I believe that in my heart of hearts.”