City leaders stress balance in managing rapid growth

FORT COLLINS — While Northern Colorado cities continue their growth trajectories, leaders instinctively work to keep the lines of communication open, while at the same time protecting their community identities.

Four such leaders — Rachel Flynn, deputy city manager of Greeley; Matt LeCerf, city manager of Johnstown; Shane Hale, city manager of Windsor; and Kelly DiMartino, city manager of Fort Collins — capped off a day of real estate discussions Tuesday at BizWest’s Northern Colorado Real Estate Summit, which drew more than 500 to the Lory Student Center at Colorado State University.

All four have been dealing with the intense growth facing Colorado’s northern Front Range, while Fort Collins has slowed somewhat. But all agreed that keeping track of building permits, local real estate, banking and business professionals and residents is key to staying on top of growth in their areas.

“No one has ever moved to a place that’s too big,” Hale said in response to how he handles the tensions growth puts on residents and the city. “It just gets to be a little too big after you let people in. Whether you’re a resident for 25 years or two years, once I got here, you should have shut the door after me.

“A lot of things we hear are the impacts from residents. There’s more traffic, costs are going up, housing costs have gone up, there are longer waits in the stores. We definitely try to manage those impacts to the residential community. People really don’t like it, even though they do pressure the city council for the benefits of growth, such as more places to shop and more things to do in town.

“Finding that balance and trying to please people while also … that’s where our council is. From a staff side, it feels like the insurmountable challenge of dealing with these massive infrastructure costs and not being certain we’ll be able to pull it off.”

Some of the challenges cities must face amid the growth they’ve seen is building out infrastructure to handle growth, while satisfying those residents who want more services and meeting market demand to bring more growth to their borders, and consequently revenue to their towns to pay for the growth.

LeCerf said the infrastructure challenges that come with growth pushed Johnstown to build out infrastructure to handle expected growth, and it came knocking shortly thereafter.

“I think through that, we’ve been able to educate the community,” LeCerf said. “If 50% of Colorado’s growth is coming to either Larimer or Weld, Johnstown exists in both. We’ve educated the community that you have this point where you can control or manage development or you can let it control you.”

That begs the question of creating a regional vision in planning for growth, but the city leaders stressed that cooperation must be tempered with doing what’s right for their own towns.

“Philosophically, we all believe more regional collaboration is a good thing and we want to bolster our regional collaboration,” said DiMartino. “Where it gets challenging is to what end? In transportation infrastructure, absolutely. There’s always going to be an inherent tension. People are looking out for the interest of their own communities.”

Flynn of Greeley agreed. “What do we have in common and where are we competing? We want that Costco, but you want that Costco. Where can we find the common ground, particularly in the infrastructure?  I don’t think you can over-plan,” she said. “We have to think collectively. Our borders don’t just stop and you fall off. How can we really complement each other? I don’t think you want a meat-packing plant in your town, but we’re an ag town, and it’s one of our biggest employers.”

The managers all said the growth they’re seeing is exciting and challenging at the same time.

“I’m really excited because it’s better to be the receiver of growth, than be in decline,” Hale said. “It’s still going to be a challenge. Regionally … we have a good system in place to collaborate, having mostly the right discussions and trying to figure out how to collaborate.”

All agreed that transportation is one such collaboration point that all will have to work on eventually, especially in the U.S. Highway 34 corridor, which spans Loveland, Johnstown and Greeley and impacts Windsor.

Moderator Darin Atteberry, who served as Fort Collins’ city manager for more than two decades and more recently was a market president for Elevations Credit Union, offered his hope that cities work with their business leaders.

“I’ve said for 25 years, it’s really important for business and local government to talk,” Atteberry said. “Sometimes, in the last few years, at my time in Elevations, it felt like two ships passing in the night. The hearts of our local governments are represented here today. I would encourage all of you, find one of these local leaders in your community and have coffee and learn about their priorities.”

on Facebook on LinkedIn