#LOUISVILLE   #FAMILIES   

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The Marshall Fire burned 550 homes in Louisville, traumatically displacing 6% of the community. According to the Department of insurance, the vast majority of fire survivors that lost their homes in the Marshall Fire are underinsured at an average amount of $242,000. Those families must make up huge financial shortfalls in order to get back what they lost, in order to rejoin their community.

Those rebuilding after losing homes in Louisville must pay 2.7 times what residents in Superior pay and 1.6 times what residents in Unincorporated Boulder County pay at permitting. Because the fees and taxes that Louisville charges are so excessive, many long time Louisville residents will be pushed out of the community. Some of those residents raised their children and planned to live out their retirement in their homes. 

Very little of the money collected at permitting is connected to a City service related to rebuilding the homes that burned. Despite that, some of the Louisville elected government has expressed an interest in holding onto the windfall revenues from families rebuilding to pay for the damages incurred to the City of Louisville as a whole due to the fire, including: damage to roads and sidewalks, the recreation center, the golf course, and water infrastructure.

The fire victims did not cause the Marshall Fire, and they should not be disproportionately held responsible to pay for it. Why would Louisville seek to collect revenue for City-wide repairs only from the people that lost everything they own in the fire? Only six percent of Louisville lost their homes in the fire, but fairness would dictate that ALL OF LOUISVILLE pays for City-wide repairs. As it presently stands, most families that lost homes face $22 to $37K in permitting costs that will be primarily used to fund City fire repairs. Those that had no fire or smike damage to their homes pay zero.

The largest expense at permitting the Louisville use tax, which will cost between $13K and $23K for most families that lost homes. The use tax was designed to raise money from new home builds for the recreation center, open space and historical preservation society. The use tax was never intended to be levied against homeowners rebuilding their homes after a loss. The Town of Superior moved quickly to rebate use taxes and permit fees after the fire for these reasons. The Louisville families that lost homes in the fire should not be forced to take out new loans and dig into their retirement savings to afford these excessive City taxes and fees. 

We demand that our elected Louisville government:

1) Provide a 100% use tax rebate for fire survivors that rebuild. If the elected government will not agree to pass a use tax rebate, then we demand that City Council put a use tax rebate on the ballot so that the voters of Louisville can decide. 

2) Rebate all further fees and taxes collected at permitting that will not be used to provide services related to rebuilding fire survivor’s houses.