Greeley City Council votes to use eminent domain for Terry Ranch project if necessary
Courtesy photo
By Trenton Sperry
The Greeley City Council on Tuesday night gave permission for the city to purchase land for the Terry Ranch water project and pursue eminent domain if negotiations break down.
Terry Ranch represents a 1.2-million-acre-foot expansion of Greeley’s water portfolio, and it’s expected to cost the city $193 million once complete. The aquifer storage and recovery project represents a departure from the city’s standard reservoir and mountain runoff water system.
But in order to get the water from that underground pocket in northern Weld County down to Greeley, the city needs to build 30 miles of pipeline. Those 30 miles cross private land, and the city will have to pay property owners for the 60-foot-wide stretches needed to house the pipeline. (Additional land will be required during the construction of each leg of the pipeline, but that portion eventually will be conveyed back to landowners.)
By law, the city must compensate landowners at fair-market value for any portion of land required for the project. There’s a lengthy legal process involved in determining what that value is, and landowners can always reject the city’s offers.
In those cases, the city could exercise what’s called eminent domain. Sometimes referred to as condemnation, it allows governments to seize the properties in dispute after legal hearings, although the city still must compensate landowners at a fair market price.
City Attorney Doug Marek said Greeley has had relative success in the past when making land purchases for city projects. He said eminent domain is a last resort.
City staff told council Tuesday they’ve already reached out to landowners along the first 6 miles of pipeline that they hope to begin building this year. That portion of the pipeline stretches from Weld County Road 72 and WCR 15 to Colo. 14. The majority of the design process for the second phase – from Colo. 14 to the Terry Ranch aquifer north of Carr – is anticipated to be complete by next year. The full water supply project may not be complete until 2040.
The vote to approve land purchases and eminent domain use was unanimous among the six members of council present Tuesday evening.
Other things council did Tuesday
Voted on a final reading of an ordinance to increase development costs in exchange for a decrease in water investment fees, in order for the city to expand its non-potable (read: non-drinkable) water system, which is largely used to irrigate city-owned properties. At-large Councilman Brett Payton successfully moved to have the ordinance amended to remove a mandate that private non-potable systems would be forbidden in new developments within the city; Ward IV Councilman Dale Hall voted against that change. Still, the final vote on the ordinance was unanimous among the six council members who participated in the meeting.
Received an update on the COVID-19 pandemic in Greeley. Dan Frazen, the city’s emergency manager, said Greeley’s two hospitals have 41 COVID patients and that positive cases are up 20% from a week ago. Frazen said the city had 23 employees out of work Tuesday and that the city’s testing positivity rate was nearly over 40%. Frazen noted county Health Department data indicate the unvaccinated are twice as likely as the fully vaccinated to test positive for COVID and about five times more likely to be hospitalized by the virus.
Approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Colorado Department of Transportation to receive reimbursement for a nearly $2.4 million expansion of the city’s traffic fiber optic network thanks to a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant money will help the city complete Phase 3 of its project, which completes a loop throughout Greeley. The work will also add traffic signals to Greeley’s existing adaptive timing system, which predicts and adjusts to traffic patterns to keep cars from idling at intersections in order to improve air quality.
Approved an intergovernmental agreement with CDOT for the installation of “dynamic advance warning flashers” at U.S. 34 Bypass and WCR 17. According to city documents, that intersection was the site of the most rear-end collisions in the city during the past few years. The new signs, which still must be designed and installed, will forewarn drivers approaching the intersection when the light is red, encouraging them to slow down ahead of time. The $125,800 in funding for this project comes mostly from federal funds, although the state is pitching in about $13,000.
Approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Greeley-Weld County Airport Authority, of which the city is a sponsor, to use $59,000 in grant money to pay for costs related to “operations, personnel, cleaning, sanitization, janitorial services and debt service payments” at the airport. The spending is required to be related to COVID. The grant was awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration as part of the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act, which passed Congress in March.
Gave final approval to reauthorize the Construction Trades Advisory & Appeals Board, the Greeley Art Commission, the Greeley/Weld Housing Authority, and the Union Colony Civic Center Advisory Board, each for three years. No city board or commission has failed to be reauthorized by the city since the requirement that all come up for such a vote was added to the city’s charter in 2001.