Growing town hasn’t severed ties to past
SEVERANCE — The little town of Severance is growing up.
Along with the growth has come numerous new businesses that seized on competitively priced commercially zoned land, including bars and restaurants, personal service shops and salons, retail stores, a bank, self-storage, child day care and more.
It also has brought challenges, including strains on Severance’s ability to supply water to all the new residents and businesses.
The Lucerne-based North Weld County Water District had stopped issuing new taps in September 2021, blaming uncertainty over potential project delays for a new pipeline stretching through parts of Fort Collins and Larimer County, as well as its own capacity to treat water to the region’s explosive growth.
North Weld’s move prompted a complete moratorium on building permits by Severance and an “effective moratorium” on building permits in Eaton. Other nearby communities also were affected.
North Weld officially lifted the freeze last November.
Severance began as a receiving station and dump for the nearby Great Western Sugar Co. and remained in that role until 1985.”
The town traces its history to 1894, when David E. Severance applied for a post office for a community of approximately 50 families that originally was called Tailholt. However, because Severance’s name was on the application, the post office was erroneously named Severance — and the name stuck. Mail was carried to and from the new town by horse and buggy from Eaton, then from Windsor. Farmers began raising sugar beets in the area, and the town itself was founded in 1906 by Bruce Eaton, son of Gov. Benjamin Eaton.
Severance began as a receiving station and dump for the nearby Great Western Sugar Co. and remained in that role until 1985.
This summer, Severance joined Evans and Keenesburg in taking advantage of Weld County’s free offer to assist in processing applications for oil and gas developments. The intergovernmental agreement approved by the Board of Weld County Commissioners will allow those municipalities to save time and resources by consulting with more experienced professionals from the county’s Oil and Gas Energy Department and reducing costly errors in the process.
In January, London-based ContourGlobal Ltd., a 20-year-old independent power producer based in London, acquired a solar-energy portfolio that includes the Black Hollow Solar array in Severance. Ground was broken last year for the array, which is being built by Irvine, California-based Qcells USA Corp. When it reaches full operation by 2027, the 1,400-acre solar array will generate enough energy to keep the lights on in 63,000 homes in Northern Colorado, edging the Platte River Power Authority closer to its goal of zero-carbon energy generation by 2030.
The town currently maintains six parks spread throughout many town neighborhoods. A trail system is being developed that will hook into regional trail systems in the future.
And in December, Severance finally got its own police station. The new 4,000 square-foot station carried a price tag of just over $3 million, although it was constructed without accruing any debt or imposing any new taxes on Severance residents.