Estes Park voters OK extending sales tax, reject rezoning issue

ESTES PARK — Estes Park voters on Tuesday approved a second 10-year extension to the town’s 1% sales tax by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, but narrowly rejected a citizen-initiated rezoning ordinance.

In unofficial results issued late Tuesday, Ballot Question 1A, the sales-tax issue, was winning 1,185 votes to 644. However, opponents of Ballot Question 1 cast 921 votes against it, while proponents recorded 835.

The sales-tax issue extends for another decade a levy that was approved by voters in 2014 and would have expired on June 30. It designates 46% of the revenue for construction, repair and replacement of streets in the town, 28% for expansion of the town’s stormwater infrastructure, 12.5% for expansion and reconstruction of public trails in the Estes Valley, 9% for implementation of a wildfire-mitigation program by the Estes Valley Fire Protection District, and — for the first time — 4.5% for the mitigation of wildfire risk from town power-distribution lines, a fund that would generate an estimated $400,000 a year.

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Wildfire mitigation was fresh in the minds of Estes Park voters. In October 2020, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome wildfires, biggest in Colorado history, menaced the town, with the latter blaze crossing the Continental Divide within Rocky Mountain National Park and forcing the town to be evacuated.

The Estes Park Board of Trustees had placed the citizen-initiated rezoning issue on the ballot instead of approving the issue itself. Supported by the advocacy group Preserve Estes Park, it would have required approval of 60% of property owners within 500 feet of any property for which an application for  zoning map amendments was sought before the town board could consider such a request.

The Estes Park Housing Authority on Feb. 14 adopted a resolution opposing the ballot initiative, contending that it would significantly impair that panel’s efforts to provide more affordable and attainable workforce housing in the Estes Valley, especially because voters in 2022 had approved a lodging tax to pay for workforce housing and child-care initiatives. It noted that it would be hard to reach the 60% of property owners needed for approval because about 40% of residential properties in the town are owned by absentee owners either as vacation rental properties or second homes. The housing authority also said the ordinance  or as vacation rental properties and, as a result, it would be difficult to reach the 60% approval threshold.

One of Preserve Estes Park’s missions is to “prevent the setting of dangerous precedent by stopping the Town of Estes Park from any rezoning without significant neighborhood input and impact studies.”