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1/22/2020 Denver Post investigation into Colorado's metro districts reveals billions in debt paid by homeowners <br />BUSINESS > REAL ESTATE • Investigative <br />Colorado metro districts and <br />developers create billions in <br />debt, leaving homeowners <br />with soaring tax bills <br />Districts were created as answer to TABOR, give <br />developers enormous power <br />By DAVID MIGOYA I dmigoya@denverpost.com I The Denver Post <br />PUBLISHED: December 5, 2019 at 6:00 am I UPDATED: December 12, 2019 at <br />11:27 am <br />233 <br />The two-story, five -bedroom place just east of Loveland was as sweet as <br />Tlene and Tyler Sterkel dreamed it would be, from the custom finishes in <br />the basement to the granite countertops and the en -suite master bedroom. <br />Then their first property tax bill arrived. Already on a tight budget, they <br />stared at a bill that had gone from $818 at their closing in 2014 to nearly <br />$3,500 barely a year later, then $4,400 two years after that. <br />"We were suddenly buried in property taxes we couldn't afford," Tlene <br />Sterkel said. "The mortgage on the house we could afford just fine. But the <br />taxes murdered us. We never saw it coming." <br />Their $312,000 home was one of more than 1,900 planned for a community <br />known as Thompson River Ranch, a 650-acre development on the edge of <br />Johnstown. About 650 of those houses are finished today. <br />Nearly half the Sterkels' tax bill — and the reason it had shot up so quickly <br />https://www.denverpost.com/2019/12/05/metro-districts-debt-democracy-colorado-housing-development/ 27 1 /19 <br />