GREELEY, Colo. (AP) - A one-sided battle is brewing along the county line.
Ted Simmons[1] dreams of one day turning his land in unincorporated northwest Weld County over to his kids and his grandkids.
Looking across his property, marked by lightly rolling hills and sparsely tree-lined gullies and punctuated by an expansive home near the crest of a rise, Simmons[2] says it hasn’t been his for all that long - he’s surprised to count up to 10 years now, in fact, since he moved to the area. Relative to his neighbors, Simmons[3] is a newcomer.
But that property - though already sliced up in broad ribbons by a handful of un-developable sections due to easements from the likes of oil and gas companies and telecommunications giants - isn’t valuable anymore for its potential to support agriculture. Simmons’ land hasn’t been a working farm for some time. But, east a few miles of Fort Collins and north of the fast-growing towns of Timnath, Severance and Windsor, Simmons[7] knows his property value lies in the potential to be turned into somewhat more dense residential space in the increasingly near future.
But 55 miles south an entity with more immediate growth concerns is looking to flex its considerable muscle to make Simmons’ development dreams significantly harder to realize.
Simmons[8] is one of more than a hundred landowners - some who have been there for generations - who received a letter in recent weeks from an agent of the city of Thornton[9].
The letter offers Simmons[10] and his neighbors a sum of money - Simmons[11] reckoned the city is figuring about $7,500 per acre - for a permanent easement that would allow the city to build a jagged-lined water pipeline, north to south, across Weld County into Thornton[12].
“The current proposal makes that piece of land almost unusable,” Simmons[13] told the Greeley Tribune. “I can still put up hay, but for the future, if you want to do any plans in the future, it pretty much destroys the whole piece. You can’t build over it.”
What it’s all for
In the 1980s, Thornton[14], like many forward-thinking Colorado municipalities, began looking for a way to secure itself adequate water access for its growing populace. The city’s answer was a substantial share in a ditch that comes off a spot on the Cache la Poudre...