A majority of Kiowa Board of Trustees members voted to move forward with the idea of a special district and with talks regarding a proposed Kiowa Creek residential community development plan at the old Wombult property, south of Fawn Valley, presented by Tim Craft of Craft Companies. Trustee Carey Kalish voted against moving forward with the preliminary plans set forth in a developer agreement at the trustees' meeting on Feb. 9.

Plans for the proposed development in Kiowa are still in the early stages, and Craft stated at the meeting that the only purpose for the Feb. 9 discussion was to find out if board members were aware of how metropolitan districts work, and if they would have any problem with the community being under the jurisdiction of a special district.

Metro districts are created by developers and are quasi-governmental district that have taxing authoritywithin the communities they build. They are often established to create the infrastructure necessary to support a new subdivision. Buyers in the community will see a mill levy tax from the district on their property tax bill, much like a mill levy tax from a school district.

Craft has not yet submitted a concept plan for the development, and said the first step was finding out if trustees are comfortable with a metro district. Trustees pushed Craft to give them some type of general concept plan, but Craft said they were not prepared to do so at this time.

“We submitted the draft developer's agreement about six months ago,” said Craft. “Normally if we submit a site plan we start negotiation on a site plan and we're not really there yet. If the town is not comfortable with the metro district, then we would have to start moving things around on the site plans and that can cost a lot of money. We respectfully decline (providing a concept plan) at this time.”

Craft presented a verbal description of the proposed development, stating “We are anticipating somewhere in the neighborhood of 333 to 400 homes. There is a need for workforce housing within the community. One of the biggest concerns from Elizabeth and Kiowa school districts is their teachers don't have a place to live within the district.”

Craft agreed to put together a non-binding conceptual plan for trustees to review at the upcoming March 2 meeting. Meeting information can be found on the town's website, townofkiowa-co.gov, under meetings and agendas.