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Election 2007: Time for change

Read all stories related to Election Day results

2007 Election, How Routt County voted

Precinct by precinct breakdown of how Routt County voted

Hayden — The town of Hayden will put more of its tax responsibility on new growth, thanks to the passage of Referendum 2A.

The referendum creates a building materials use tax that will replace an existing automobile use tax. The new tax is intended to raise the overall amount of revenue collected by the town and shift the tax burden from existing Hayden residents to newcomers.

The ballot question was recommended by the town's Citizen Tax Review Committee as a way to handle the increasing demand for town services and infrastructure resulting from development.

The tax will primarily be levied upon developers and newcomers to the community, though current residents will be affected if they renovate their home or build a new one.

The new tax is expected to raise between $75,000 and $100,000 each year through a 2 percent tax on half the value of new construction, levied according to building permit valuations.

In comparison, the current automobile use tax generates between $25,000 and $30,00 a year, and is collected each time a vehicle is purchased.

Town Manager Russ Martin emphasized that the building materials use tax is designed to "shift the burden" of paying for growth.

"We need to : help our existing rate-payers and taxpayers to hopefully not be footing more of the bill than the rest of the communities enjoy," Martin said.

The tax revenue likely will not be included as allocations in Hayden's annual budget because of it will fluctuate from year to year, Martin said. Instead, the town plans to allocate the funds for capital improvements as they become available, he said.

Local developers did not strongly oppose the building materials use tax when the ballot measure was introduced.

Roger Johnson, president of Mount Harris Development and one of the developers of The Villages at Hayden subdivision, previously said the tax could actually encourage future growth if its revenue was used to fund economically productive infrastructure projects.

If the measure had failed, the town of Hayden likely would have had to revisit the composition of its tax base in the near future, to become "a bit more competitive in the commercial tax market," Martin said.