The Estes Park Town Board approved several highly charged issues on the agenda at its meeting Tuesday night, including rezoning property on Peak View Drive, higher electric rates, and the eligibility of Elkhorn Phase II for annexation. The meeting stretched past 11 p.m.
Also approved were the 2045 Transportation Plan, an amendment to the 2005 Continental Water Bank agreement, and a lease agreement with Platte River Power Authority to provide land to store large batteries that can provide redundancy in Estes Park’s electric service.
An application by local developer Frank Theis to subdivide a 4-acre piece of land to create 12 lots and a large open space area at 685 Peak View Drive was approved by a five-to-two vote. The subdivision, Coyote Run II, will contain eight Habitat for Humanity houses managed through the co-applicant, David Emerson of Habitat for Humanity of the St. Vrain Valley.
Beginning in January 2026, new electric rates will take effect. For the first time, those who require additional infrastructure and maintenance will bear a heavier burden to make up the additional 3.5% income per year identified as essential to maintain resilience and reliability. Meghan Helper from NewGen Strategies and Solutions, the consultant hired to complete the rate study, explained the five steps used to determine the cost-based rate design.
As a result of this added step, residential accounts will see an increase of 2-2.5%, “anywhere from $2 to $8 increase per month,” said Helper, and small commercial will see an increase of about 3%, which would be an additional $5-$9 each month. Other customer classes that require more infrastructure to maintain will see increases above 3% to reach the average income target of 3.5%.
There are no municipal-owned utilities in the state that are comparable to Estes Park, said Utility Director Reuben Bergsten in a previous interview with the EVV. One of the most costly and essential improvements is the conversion of bare electric wire to “tree cable,” a type of overhead power line with an insulated covering designed to prevent outages caused by tree limbs making contact with the power lines. Tree cables are resilient to outages and play a crucial role in fire prevention. Currently, 328,000 feet of tree cable are installed, with an additional 795,000 feet yet to be converted, said Bergsten.
“In 2023, we installed 4,800 feet of tree cable while last year, 2024, we installed 21,900 feet,” he said. Bergsten went on to explain that the installation of tree cable depends on the workload and what capital projects are planned for each year.
The costs for these improvements don’t just come from electric rate revenue, he said, “We anticipate maintaining a higher annual footage of tree cable over the next few years because we are focusing on the $785,937 FEMA grant and the annual $225,000 1A sales tax fire mitigation money.”
Public comments against raising the electric rates included views that the Town-owned utility was making “too much money” at the expense of its customers, and a concern that the money was being used for purposes other than providing electricity to its customers. The EVV could find no evidence of this in its research on the subject.
The Board voted that the Elkhorn Phase II project meets the criteria to be eligible for annexation, including having at least one-sixth of its boundary adjacent to the Town limits. The annexation hearing will be held at a future date. Plans for this development have received considerable public criticism, primarily from its immediate neighbors.
“A lot of the things that people didn’t understand is that one of the benefits of annexation is that that property would be controlled by your representatives right here,” said Mayor Pro Tem Marie Cenac, referring to the Town Board. “Whereas if it’s not annexed, it’s not under our control. And so I think there’s a lot of pluses to the locals: to be able to control, or at least decide, what’s going on that property versus not.”
Following months of work by the Transportation Advisory Board, a citizens’ advisory committee on transportation issues in the Estes Valley, and Town of Estes Park staff, the 2045 Transportation Plan has been adopted. The plan is intended to serve as a guide for the Town as it pursues future transportation improvements, and is comprised of the Estes Park Multi-Modal Transportation Plan and the Estes Park Transit Development Plan, said Dana Klein, the Town’s parking and transit manager.
In the West, “whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” said utility director Reuben Bergsten while presenting on the proposal to give six units of Colorado Big Thompson water rights back to the Continental Water Bank for them to manage. The bank was established in 2005 to help manage the requirement that all water consumed needs to be replaced at the source in Colorado, which primarily applies to those who are on wells.
The six units of Colorado Big Thompson water in question were given to the Town of Estes Park from the water bank at that time, in exchange for an administrative fee. However, “successfully monetizing or using the six units of CBT water has proven to be difficult,” said Bergsten in his memo to the board. The board voted unanimously in favor of the proposal.
In other Town Board news, Platte River Power Authority was given a lease on a Town-owned property near Elm Road to safely store oversized batteries that can help in a local outage, the Estes Nonprofit Network presented on their base funding results, and Mayor Gary Hall read a proclamation declaring 2025, “The Year of Philanthropy.”
The next Town of Estes Park board meeting will be held on July 8, beginning at 7 p.m. in Town Hall, 170 MacGregor Avenue in downtown Estes Park.