FYI ... Lov council votes to end metro district moratorium - Reporter-Herald
Thomas Clayton
After 568 days, Loveland’s moratorium on metropolitan district applications is over. With a vote of 7 to 2, the City Council on Tuesday lifted the temporary ban on the developer financing mechanism, which was intended to last just six months when it was imposed in November 2023.
“I think the moratorium was a good thing,” said Councilor Jon Mallo prior to voting to end it. “It stopped everything. It made us think, made us go back to the drawing board and we came up with lots of things we can use for guardrails. …I think we can chew gum and walk at the same time — we can lift the moratorium, clear the backlog and start working on phase two.”
But the hour-and-a-half of heated back and forth that preceded the decision made clear why it took 568 days to get there. Long a contentious topic for the City Council, Tuesday’s discussion often wandered off topic and, at times, turned personal, as members traded points-of-order and accusations of disrespectful dialogue.
The moratorium was first imposed in November 2023, following a significant turnover of council members after that year’s municipal election. Citing concern over inadequate oversight and transparency, newly elected Ward 4 representative Laura Light-Kovacs proposed the temporary ban on metro districts until the city’s rules could be reviewed and revised.
In the months that followed, staff came back to the council to work through multiple rounds of amendments, finally coming to a consensus in April.
On Tuesday, the council voted on the outcome of that process in two separate measures: a resolution to repeal the moratorium, and an ordinance to amend the city’s code on metro districts, which passed unanimously on the first reading on June 3.
The amendments include expanded disclosure requirements for homebuyers, mandatory signage in metro district neighborhoods and a provision requiring intergovernmental agreements between metro districts and the city, to make the regulations more enforceable.
Among the top flashpoints in Tuesday’s discussion was a move by Mayor Jacki Marsh during the first reading of the ordinance two weeks earlier.
To bolster her opposition to metro districts, Marsh pointed out that none of the current City Council members have chosen to live in one of Loveland’s 22 metro districts, implying it is due to the drawbacks of such arrangements. To support her claim, she shared property tax records — beginning with her own — detailing home purchase prices and recent tax bills for herself and seven of her colleagues.
This prompted a backlash from several members during the first debate that continued into Tuesday’s and caused the majority of procedural interruptions. Marsh defended the move by noting that the records are public information available to anyone, but that didn’t do much to assuage the objections
“I personally found it wildly disrespectful to draw out and surmise information about council members, especially as the chair,” Councilor Andrea Samson said. “I agree with Councilor Olson and Councilor Foley that sharing information, regardless of how public it is, especially about our finances and our spending habits, is unnecessary. …This is the type of thing that gets people riled up, and it’s also really poor leadership.”
There was also plenty of contention to be had over Marsh’s general opposition to lifting the moratorium. An outspoken critic of metro districts, the mayor argued that the proposed additions to the code don’t go quite far enough and the moratorium should stay in place until the conclusion of the next phase of revisions.
“I don’t know why on earth we would consider lifting a moratorium, knowing that it’s unfinished,” she said. “We could end up having…five or six Metro districts that are interested slip through, condemning future property owners to 40 years of debt before you’ve implemented the additional safeguards that we need.”
In response, Councilors Dana Foley, Pat McFall and Steve Olson took turns pushing back on Marsh’s earlier claim that cities like Fort Collins and Longmont function without metro districts, arguing that those communities are at different stages of development and often build in areas where infrastructure already exists. They also pointed out that both cities have higher sales and property tax rates than Loveland.
The trio also questioned how much the city should interfere in what is, at heart, a transaction between two private parties.
“It’s not our role to protect the citizens from themselves or to protect the citizens from their choices,” said Olson. “But I think we do have a responsibility to make sure they’re fully informed, to the extent possible, of the implications of their choices, and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
The discussion proceeded along these lines for several minutes, before finally winding down around the 90-minute mark. Once again, the amendment ordinance went to pass unanimously, while the resolution to end the moratorium got no votes from Marsh and Erin Black.
With the end of the moratorium, developers now have the green light to get their metro district proposals before city development staff and then the council for approval. However, work on the city’s regulations will continue with a second phase that will involve more public engagement and stakeholder input.
 | Tom Clayton Communication and Media Specialist, Public Affairs |
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