Small-Town Colorado Growth Is Booming Again

The Denver Gazette’s Savannah Eller reports that while Colorado’s overall growth has slowed, some small towns along Front Range highway corridors are booming. The article points to places like Elizabeth, Bennett, Berthoud, Johnstown, Fort Lupton, Severance, and possibly Calhan, where proposed housing could dramatically change the size and feel of communities that still think of themselves as rural.

That is the tension in one tidy little Colorado nutshell: people want the small-town feel, the open sky, the cheaper land, the easier commute, and the sense of place. Then enough people want it at the same time, and suddenly the small town has traffic, water questions, road impacts, and a council meeting full of folks wondering who invited the subdivision parade.

The Bullet Point Brief

• Colorado’s statewide population growth was just 0.4% last year, but some small towns have seen double-digit percentage growth over the past five years. Growth did not disappear. It just found cheaper dirt and a highway ramp.
• Elizabeth, located on the Colorado 86 corridor east of Castle Rock, doubled from about 1,300 people in 2018 to roughly 3,000 in 2024. That is not a growth curve. That is a small town waking up with a metro-area hangover.
• Berthoud grew from 8,000 to 13,000 between 2018 and 2024, while Bennett went from under 3,000 in 2020 to nearly 4,000 in the latest estimate. Apparently, if you put a town between open land and a job center, builders eventually notice.
• Calhan could see about 475 new single-family homes through the proposed North Tree annexation, which could more than double the town’s population. For a town of about 760 people, that is not just “new neighbors.” That is a whole new zip-code personality.
• The big questions are the ones locals always ask first: roads, water, services, commercial development, and whether the town can grow without losing its soul. Also chickens. The article actually ends with a resident noting, “You’re going to want chickens.” Frankly, that may be the most Colorado land-use quote of the year.

My Bottom Line

Growth is one of the things I hear about most often. It hits small towns hard, especially the ones sitting along state highways with access to the metro area. The land may be less expensive. Entitling the ground may cost less. The water associated with the land may still be there. The regulations are likely less restrictive than in larger cities. Developers can read a map. This is not sorcery.

I have always welcomed growth. I saw it up close in Johnstown when I served as a councilman and mayor. Growth can bring homes for families, more customers for businesses, more opportunity, and a stronger local tax base. But unmanaged growth is like turning cattle loose in the garden and then acting surprised when the tomatoes are gone.

We have to plan for it. That means transportation infrastructure cannot be an afterthought scribbled in the margin after the ribbon-cutting photos are scheduled. If people are coming, roads have to work. State highways have to be part of the conversation. Intersections, safety, freight movement, commute patterns, emergency response, water, sewer, schools, and public safety all have to be dealt with before the first moving truck gets stuck behind a hay trailer.

At the same time, I understand why people push back. Growth changes a small town. Sometimes it improves it. Sometimes it waters it down until the place starts looking like every other beige subdivision with a monument sign and a marketing brochure written by someone who thinks “rural charm” means a decorative windmill.

The job is to find a way to coexist with growth while protecting property rights, rural character, and a sense of place. That is not easy. It never has been. But pretending we can freeze our towns in amber is not a plan. Neither is letting every developer with a PowerPoint and a drainage report write the future for us. Colorado needs homes families can afford, but we also need communities worth calling home. Both things can be true, even if the zoning hearing lasts until everyone needs coffee and forgiveness.

Source: The Denver Gazette