Niwot’s roads need a plan. We have one.

The 30-second case

31 miles of roads. 23 have no funded repair plan. In 1995 Boulder County redefined “maintenance” to leave out repaving (the history). Average pavement condition is PCI 44 — well below any responsible community standard.
The town plan: $2.7M/year for bond repayment, pavement maintenance (including reserves), and snow removal. The bond is repaid largely from sales tax — not a new property tax. Visitors, deliveries, and commercial traffic share the cost.
“Why not just do a PID?” A road district costs a typical home about three times what incorporation does, and buys pavement only. The one you can form covers your own subdivision, at about 33 mills. A townwide one is not on offer — defeated in 2013 and withdrawn in 2025 — and is cheap only while everyone stays in it; it settles near 31. Find your neighborhood · why a district doesn’t fix this.
The status quo is not “free.” The cost to repair decades of neglect goes up 50% if we wait five more years and will more than double by 2040. Sellers may have to disclose the absence of a repair plan.

The Problem

31 miTotal road miles in the proposed town

23 miMiles with no funded repair plan today

PCI 44Average pavement condition — well below any responsible standard

$15MTo bring all roads (including HOA private roads) up to PCI >70 by 2029

Boulder County stepped away from Niwot’s residential roads decades ago. In 1996 it abandoned roughly 20 miles. In 2025 it announced that another 3 miles of “residential collectors” would be dropped — leaving only 5 miles of main arteries in the county program. Of what is left, 23 miles are no one’s responsibility, 3 are private streets kept up by homeowners associations, and a half mile lies in an improvement district.

The road in front of your house
doesn’t get you anywhere.

Much of the network isn’t in front of anyone’s house. What matters is the whole system — the roads to downtown, to school, to your neighbors, in and out of town. Those are community roads, and they require a community solution. No outside agency is coming to fix this.

The Plan

A town owns all 31 miles and answers for them. The plan budgets $2.7 million a year: bond repayment $1.24M, pavement maintenance including reserves $1.28M, and snow and related work $0.18M.

Every mile in one program, using modern repair methods (full-depth reclamation, mill & overlay) at $5.67/sf delivered, built up from a contractor bid.
Snow plowing included — a service no district proposed here has covered.
A ~$1.1M allowance for bridges, drainage & sidewalks. HOA private roads by agreement.
Paid for by a 2.5% sales tax and a 4-mill property tax, so visitors share the cost.
Decided by a locally elected council, accountable to you.

Your money. Your roads. Your priorities.
Decided by neighbors you can vote out — not by commissioners you can’t.

What It Costs You

Niwot’s roads get paid for one of two ways: by a town, or by a road district. Here is what each costs the same home.

What each one costs a household

Priced per year on Niwot’s median home of $1,095,000.

Incorporation4 mills + 2.5% sales taxon the ballot November 3

$279 + $473

$752

1.0×

A road district31 to 33 millsproperty tax only

$2,160–$2,300

2.9×–3.1×

33 mills · $2,300: A district for your own neighborhood — the one you can form today. Typical, weighted by homes; yours may differ. Find yours.
About 31 mills · $2,160: A townwide district, where it settles: drawn without those it would tax for roads it never touches or already pays for, and with every neighborhood that would pay less on its own holding a reason to vote no. Not on offer — defeated at the ballot in 2013 and withdrawn in 2025. How it gets there.

Property tax, a townSales tax, 2.5%Property tax, a district

A district buys pavement. A town buys the pavement, plows it, sweeps it, and does everything else a town does — for about a third of the price.

Property tax at Colorado’s 6.8% local-government rate after the statutory $70,000 reduction. A district levies property tax only, so visitors and commercial traffic contribute nothing to one, and it pays for pavement alone — no snow removal, and the collector roads between neighborhoods keep no owner. We are not predicting how any neighborhood would vote on a townwide district; 31 mills is where its own arithmetic leads, and 18 mills is its price only while everyone stays in.

What a district would cost in each of Niwot’s neighborhoods, who sits inside a townwide boundary, and why it does not hold together: Road districts: one is available, one is not.

How the Bond Works

The town borrows once, repairs every mile in a single program, and repays the debt over twenty years from sales tax — so the whole network is fixed at once rather than a few blocks a year, and the cost is shared by everyone who uses those roads over those twenty years. Ballot Issue 306 caps the amount and the total repayment, names the revenue source, and restricts the money to streets, roads, bridges, drainage, sidewalks and related infrastructure. Read the ballot language.

$15MThe most the town may borrow. The council may issue less.

$28MThe most the town may ever repay, principal and interest combined.

$0Property tax pledged to the bond. Repayment comes from sales and use tax.

November 3, 2026Voters decide.

August 2027Town officials take office.

April 2029Bonds are issued, sized to the sales and use tax Niwot actually collected in 2028.

Summer 2029 – end of 2030Construction.

A road bond puts no lien on your home.

Ballot Issue 306 pledges town sales-tax revenue — not anyone’s property. No lien attaches to any home, and no tax can be raised to service the debt without another vote. The Colorado bond defaults that make news are special districts, not cities and towns. Why that distinction matters.

Interest rates, the credit rating, the underwriter’s written answers and what happens if revenue falls short: every bond question, answered.

Every Year We Wait Costs More

Not incorporating is often described as doing nothing. In practice it is a decision to pay more later for the same problem. Pavement degrades faster below PCI 50, and repair cost roughly triples as it drops below that line.

$15MAct now — roads repaired by the end of 2030

$22MWait until 2034 — nearly 50% more

$33MWait until 2040 — more than double

A typical household pays about $752 a year to incorporate.
Waiting adds about $940 a year to a bill we pay either way.

The $940 is the escalation spread across Niwot’s 1,735 dwellings; how we get there. Where the $15M, $22M and $33M come from, segment by segment: the road cost model.

Grants a Town Can Get

Federal transportation money for Boulder County — roughly $19 million in the 2024–2027 cycle — is allocated by the Boulder County Subregional Forum of the Denver Regional Council of Governments. Niwot is not a member, and cannot be: membership requires being a municipality, and the Forum funds only projects approved by local elected officials. Niwot has none. The next round accompanies the 2029–2032 program; a town incorporated in 2027 or 2028 would be in time for it.

Nederland has about 1,500 people. It received $1.5 million.

That was a single award for sidewalks and multimodal improvements. Louisville received $2.48 million for Via Appia Way. Lyons, at roughly 2,000 residents, sits at the same table. Niwot has more than twice the population of either and no seat at all.

This money does not repave neighborhood streets — the plan budgets that. It funds deferred safety and connectivity work, which is what Niwot has accumulated: the CO 119 intersection, the BNSF underpass, the missing connection into the regional bikeway along our western edge, downtown sidewalks. The budget models $270,000 a year from 2029, and the pro forma shows the roads plan still works if none of it ever arrives.

Frequently Asked

Aren’t our roads basically fine?

No. The independent pavement assessment shows an average PCI of 44 across the 23 unfunded miles — well below every comparable Colorado municipality. Some segments are already unsafe and need immediate repair.

Deterioration accelerates as condition drops. Above PCI 50, roads can be slurry-sealed at about $0.54/sf. Below 50, repair shifts to mill & overlay at about $2.44/sf. Below 25, full reconstruction runs about $5.67/sf. Each year of deferral pushes more miles into the more expensive categories.

How do you get to $940 per household?

The repair estimate rises from $15M in 2029 to $33M in 2040 — an increase of $18M over eleven years, or about $1.64M a year. Divided across Niwot’s 1,735 dwellings, that is about $940 per household per year, and about $10,370 per household in total.

That $940 is an average. The bill compounds at roughly 7.4% a year, so the increase is nearer $650 per household in the first year and passes $1,300 by 2040. That rate is fitted to the 2029 and 2040 estimates and reproduces the 2034 figure to within 3%; the published numbers are rounded to the nearest million, so no single rate passes through all three exactly.

It is not a bill anyone sends you. It is the growth of a cost the community carries either way. It arrives in the repair estimate, and in what your home is worth when you sell it.

Why incorporate instead of forming a PID?

Which district? A district for your own neighborhood is available today, typically about 33 mills — roughly $2,300 a year on the median home. A townwide district is not on offer: no proposal exists and nobody is assembling one. It was defeated at the ballot in 2013 (county Issue 5C, at 7.15 mills) and withdrawn before the ballot in 2025 (at 12 mills).

What a townwide one would cost: 18 mills only while every property inside the boundary pays. Draw out those it would tax for roads it never touches or roads they already pay for — private-road neighborhoods, homes on county roads, Burgundy Park, and the business parks, which can form a district for their own parkways — and it is about 27 mills. Every neighborhood that would pay less for a district of its own then has a reason to vote no, and it settles near 31. How that unravels.

Control: a PID is administered by Boulder County commissioners. It can be voted in but not voted out. A town council is your neighbors — replaceable by your vote.

Coverage: a PID pays for pavement. Incorporation plows and sweeps the roads too, and creates a local government that also addresses land use, downtown renewal, regional representation, and the next county decision. How every mill levy here is derived.

If the incorporation vote fails, what happens to the roads?

The roads still need repair — the question becomes when, at what cost, and decided by whom. Without a town, what remains is a district for each neighborhood that chooses to form one, each priced on its own, with the collector roads between neighborhoods left without an owner. A townwide district would have to be assembled from nothing, for a third time.

Costs keep rising while the decision is deferred. The town plan is the only path that uses sales tax to share the burden and the only one that puts decisions in the hands of locally elected neighbors.

Find Your Neighborhood

The road outside your house is owned by Boulder County, by your homeowners’ association, or by an improvement district you already pay into — and each puts you in a different position on November 3.