So I support Open Space taxes, always have. M post on the impact on housing affordability in the wake of a staunch OS program has led me to be aware of another trade-off being exposed on the County level. County transportation staff have told HOAs in unincorporated Boulder County they need to take over their maintenance expenses, according to this letter by Greg Klinkel in the Camera:
Wake up, residents of unincorporated Boulder County! Although the county may own your streets and sidewalks, they want you to pay for their maintenance through special assessments in addition to the property-tax dollars they collect for that purpose.
That's right. When the county accepted subdivisions such as Gunbarrel and Heatherwood, they accepted the responsibility to maintain the streets of those neighborhoods. In fact, the county owns those streets, and it is the county's responsibility to maintain them.
A representative of the Boulder County Transportation Department recently attended my homeowners association meeting to give us the message that the county would not pay to maintain their streets in our subdivision. They want us to form a Local Improvement District for this purpose, the costs of which would be borne primarily by "special assessments" to the residents. How special! By the way, this is the county's plan for all such residential subdivisions, not just Gunbarrel and Heatherwood.
Read the rest in the Camera.
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2 comments:
What's new with all that? In IP we are responsible for maintaining and repairing all the sidewalks (called trails in some cases) along 95th, Baseline, and collateral streets. We are responsible for maintaing and repairing a pedestrian tunnel that runs under Baseline. (I wonder what happens if it caves in.)
The city didn't stick us back in 1993 with road repair. But when I went to city hall and suggested they get a three year warranty from the developer instead of the one year, at least that was finally done, after five years and the streets started to degrade.
At least in IP with 2600 voters and other HOAs comprising a total of 4000 voters, it would be interesting to see the city gov try it west of 287.
P.S. The good news is very few of those folks get LN.
Hard to tell the truth here since this is in the form of a Letter to the Editor.
However, if Boulder County did, in fact, take over the ownership of the roads and sidewalks in these areas, they can't push the maintenance to a special district. Not without a court fight, anyway.
Seems like some fact checking may be in order here.
And, if the County has maintained these items for all these years, don't they have de facto ownership?
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