Niwot Together

Niwot, ColoradoEst. 1875Vote Yes · Tuesday, November 3

The argument that wins

The county isn’t coming to fix our roads.

Ask anyone in Niwot about the roads. You already know the answer.

The roads are a joke. Streets that haven’t been touched in years. And here’s the part that should bother all of us: Boulder County has no plan to fix them. We are a rounding error in a county of 330,000 people — Niwot is outnumbered 76 to 1 — so our streets wait at the back of a line that never moves.

And this is not an impression.

That is not a backlog. It is an absence of anyone whose job this is.

What does another five years of that look like? The same potholes, the same patch jobs, the same answer when you call: it’s on the list. Doing nothing isn’t safe. It’s just slow decline you can feel in your steering wheel.

And it isn’t only what you feel behind the wheel. Stretches of downtown sidewalk have been broken for years. Kathy Kohler, president of the Niwot Historical Society, tripped on one back in 2019 and broke her wrist. After years of neighbors asking, it still isn’t fixed. When no one’s whole job is Niwot, this is what “on the list” really means.

A downtown Niwot sidewalk where a field of pavers has sunk below the concrete slab beside it, leaving a raised lip across the width of the walkway.
The pavers have sunk; the slab beside them has not. Reported for years, still a trip hazard.
A pothole broken open in a residential Niwot street, photographed at pavement level, with mowed lawns, houses and spruce trees lining the road behind it.
Every lawn in this photo has someone looking after it. The road doesn't.

The fix

A town fixes its own roads. On its own schedule.

Incorporation gives Niwot a say and a budget of its own. The roads stop being someone else’s afterthought and become our own responsibility, on our own timeline — set by a council we elect, and can vote out, instead of by an office twenty miles away.

And it is a plan, not a promise. Here is what the funded program actually buys.

Coverage figures are the Committee’s, from its published roads plan; roads inside an HOA are included by agreement with that HOA.

The clincher

Isn’t a special district a cheaper way to fix just the roads?

It’s the opposite — and it gets worse every year we wait. A roads-only special district (a PID) funds itself almost entirely from property tax, so the whole bill lands on homeowners. A town funds roads through its 2.5% sales tax, so every shopper and visitor who spends a dollar in Niwot helps pay for Niwot’s roads. The town’s 4-mill property levy covers running the town.

And a PID only gets more expensive. Roads degrade every year — once pavement drops far enough, the repair cost triples or quadruples — and the county no longer chips in the way it once did. A roads-only district covering one neighborhood now runs about ~33 mills, every one of them collected from homeowners.

Here is that comparison both ways, because a campaign that shows you only the flattering half of its own arithmetic has told you something about itself. The chart below puts the town’s property levy beside the districts’ — and then puts the town’s whole household cost, sales tax included, beside them too. The second comparison is the honest one and it is a smaller number. It is still not close.

What each option costs a typical Niwot household, per year — the median home, $1,094,500
  • Town — what touches your property taxthe 4-mill levy
    $279/yr
  • Town — all-in4-mill levy + your own 2.5% sales tax
    $752/yr
  • Road district31 mills combined · 33 for one neighborhood · property tax only
    $2,160–$2,299/yr

A road district runs about 31 mills combined, or 33 for one neighborhood — roughly $2,160 to $2,299 a year on a typical home. Incorporation buys the same pavement for $752 a year all-in, and only $279 of that — 4 mills — ever touches your property tax.

There is no single district for all of Niwot on offer; one was defeated in 2013 and another withdrawn in 2025. A district covers whichever neighborhoods petition together. Leave out the areas a district would tax for roads it never touches, let the neighborhoods that would pay less on their own vote no, and the combined district that’s left comes to about 31 mills.

The district bar is property tax and nothing else, and that is not a rounding in our favor: a district has no sales tax, so its levy is its whole bill. The town’s all-in bar adds your own 2.5% sales tax to the levy, so the comparison is total against total. Every shopper and visitor who spends a dollar in Niwot pays into that sales tax on top of this figure — which is the whole reason a town needs only 4 mills of yours, and a district needs 31 to 33.

Every neighborhood, both ways

How many times a roads-only district costs, against being a town. Left of the dashed line a district would be cheaper — no neighborhood gets there on either measure.

Against the town’s whole household cost, sales tax includedAgainst the town’s property tax aloneThe dashed line is 1× — parity. Left of it, a district would be cheaper.

  • Autumn Ridge$3,083$994Autumn Ridge: a roads-only district costs $3,083 a year on the average home here, against $994 a year all-in as a town — 3.1 times the town's whole household cost, and 5.9 times the town's property tax.
  • Centrebridge$4,073$1,087Centrebridge: a roads-only district costs $4,073 a year on the average home here, against $1,087 a year all-in as a town — 3.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 6.6 times the town's property tax.
  • Cottonwood Park West$1,880$648Cottonwood Park West: a roads-only district costs $1,880 a year on the average home here, against $648 a year all-in as a town — 2.9 times the town's whole household cost, and 10.7 times the town's property tax.
  • Country Creek$3,143$778Country Creek: a roads-only district costs $3,143 a year on the average home here, against $778 a year all-in as a town — 4.0 times the town's whole household cost, and 10.3 times the town's property tax.
  • Dry Creek$3,149$758Dry Creek: a roads-only district costs $3,149 a year on the average home here, against $758 a year all-in as a town — 4.2 times the town's whole household cost, and 11.0 times the town's property tax.
  • Elm$3,233$777Elm: a roads-only district costs $3,233 a year on the average home here, against $777 a year all-in as a town — 4.2 times the town's whole household cost, and 10.6 times the town's property tax.
  • Heather Hills$4,248$910Heather Hills: a roads-only district costs $4,248 a year on the average home here, against $910 a year all-in as a town — 4.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 9.7 times the town's property tax.
  • Johnson Valley HOA$1,313$761Johnson Valley HOA: a roads-only district costs $1,313 a year on the average home here, against $761 a year all-in as a town — 1.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 4.6 times the town's property tax.
  • Legend Ridge$4,022$1,217Legend Ridge: a roads-only district costs $4,022 a year on the average home here, against $1,217 a year all-in as a town — 3.3 times the town's whole household cost, and 5.4 times the town's property tax.
  • Meadowdale$2,926$731Meadowdale: a roads-only district costs $2,926 a year on the average home here, against $731 a year all-in as a town — 4.0 times the town's whole household cost, and 11.3 times the town's property tax.
  • Monarch Park$5,520$976Monarch Park: a roads-only district costs $5,520 a year on the average home here, against $976 a year all-in as a town — 5.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 11.0 times the town's property tax.
  • Morton Heights$2,864$782Morton Heights: a roads-only district costs $2,864 a year on the average home here, against $782 a year all-in as a town — 3.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 9.3 times the town's property tax.
  • Niwot Estates$2,101$809Niwot Estates: a roads-only district costs $2,101 a year on the average home here, against $809 a year all-in as a town — 2.6 times the town's whole household cost, and 6.3 times the town's property tax.
  • Niwot Hills$9,723$1,384Niwot Hills: a roads-only district costs $9,723 a year on the average home here, against $1,384 a year all-in as a town — 7.0 times the town's whole household cost, and 10.7 times the town's property tax.
  • Niwot Meadow Farm$5,577$1,105Niwot Meadow Farm: a roads-only district costs $5,577 a year on the average home here, against $1,105 a year all-in as a town — 5.0 times the town's whole household cost, and 8.8 times the town's property tax.
  • Old Town Niwot$1,436$691Old Town Niwot: a roads-only district costs $1,436 a year on the average home here, against $691 a year all-in as a town — 2.1 times the town's whole household cost, and 6.6 times the town's property tax.
  • Overbrook$3,569$881Overbrook: a roads-only district costs $3,569 a year on the average home here, against $881 a year all-in as a town — 4.1 times the town's whole household cost, and 8.7 times the town's property tax.
  • Peppertree Estates$2,879$799Peppertree Estates: a roads-only district costs $2,879 a year on the average home here, against $799 a year all-in as a town — 3.6 times the town's whole household cost, and 8.8 times the town's property tax.
  • Somerset$3,267$976Somerset: a roads-only district costs $3,267 a year on the average home here, against $976 a year all-in as a town — 3.3 times the town's whole household cost, and 6.5 times the town's property tax.
  • Somerset Estates$4,724$1,278Somerset Estates: a roads-only district costs $4,724 a year on the average home here, against $1,278 a year all-in as a town — 3.7 times the town's whole household cost, and 5.9 times the town's property tax.
  • Springhill$3,280$910Springhill: a roads-only district costs $3,280 a year on the average home here, against $910 a year all-in as a town — 3.6 times the town's whole household cost, and 7.5 times the town's property tax.
  • Waterford$4,728$949Waterford: a roads-only district costs $4,728 a year on the average home here, against $949 a year all-in as a town — 5.0 times the town's whole household cost, and 9.9 times the town's property tax.
  • Waterford Park$4,057$980Waterford Park: a roads-only district costs $4,057 a year on the average home here, against $980 a year all-in as a town — 4.1 times the town's whole household cost, and 8.0 times the town's property tax.

Averaged across all 23 neighborhoods, a district costs 8.4 times the town’s property tax and 3.9 times a household’s whole cost of being a town. The narrowest gap on this list is 1.7×; the widest is 7.0×. We publish the smaller multiple beside the larger one because a campaign that shows you only the flattering half of its own arithmetic has told you something about itself.

Dollars use the 2026 Boulder County Assessor average assessed value for each neighborhood. The district figure is property tax only because a district has no other revenue — its levy is its whole bill. The town figure adds a household’s own 2.5% sales tax, $473 a year, to the 4-mill levy; that is a spending assumption, so it is the same in every row rather than scaling with the house. And every shopper and visitor who spends a dollar in Niwot pays into the town’s sales tax on top of these figures. A district collects from the homeowners inside it and from nobody else.

Same roads, and even counting every dollar of sales tax a Niwot household pays itself, a district costs about four times what being a town does — averaged across every neighborhood above. You get everything else a town can do as well, not just the pavement.

Curious what your share actually comes to? It’s about $752 a year, all-in — see the cost, down to the month.

We tried a PID in 2025. Here's why we stopped.Heidi Storz

The cost of waiting

Every year we wait, the bill goes up.

The repair bill behind all of this climbs whether or not anybody votes on it. About $15 million fixes the roads now. Wait, and the same pavement costs more — not because anyone raised a price, but because pavement that drops below 50 needs a more expensive repair than pavement that doesn’t.

The same repairs, priced by how long Niwot waits.
  • Act now$15 million
  • Wait to 2034$22 million
  • Wait to 2040$33 million

Doing nothing isn’t the safe choice — it is the expensive one.

Spread across Niwot’s 1,736 homes, that escalation works out to roughly $940 per home, per year — added to a bill the community pays either way. Nobody mails you that. It arrives in the repair estimate, and in what your house is worth when you sell it.

That figure is an average across eleven years, and the yearly increase is not flat: it is nearer $640 in the first year and grows from there, because each year’s escalation lands on a bigger bill than the last. Which is the actual comparison in front of Niwot — $752 a year to become a town, against roughly $940 a year added to a repair bill we are going to pay regardless. Waiting isn’t the cheaper choice. It’s the most expensive one there is.

Strip away the numbers and it’s really a question of character. The neighbors who came before us planted the cottonwoods we walk under and built the downtown we’re trying to save — they did the hard thing so we’d inherit something whole. This is our turn at that. We can fix the roads now, while the bill is ours to carry, or look away and hand our kids the same broken streets at twice the price — $33 million of them. The best towns are built by people willing to do the work they’ll only half get to enjoy.

Make it count

Fix the roads by fixing who decides.

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