Moving to Fort Lupton

Who lives here

Fort Lupton is a statutory city in Weld County, run under the Colorado Revised Statutes and its own Municipal Code in an administrator form of government. The Mayor is elected at large and six council members, two from each of three wards; the City Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of the month at 6 pm at City Hall, 130 South McKinley Avenue, and holds an open Town Hall meeting the Tuesday before each council meeting. The 2020 Census counted 7,955 people (2020 Census, in the State Demography Office’s census file). The City’s economic development office’s 2025 estimate is 10,566, in 3,551 households, with a median age of 36 and a median household income of $82,647, and projects 11,565 people by 2030 (Fort Lupton by the Numbers, citing ESRI 2025).

The City describes itself as sitting “at the intersection of Highway 85 and Highway 52” with “origins as an 1830s trading post” (Choose Fort Lupton). A new City Hall is going up at the southeast corner of 9th Street and College Avenue: the City broke ground on 16 September 2025, the building is 18,655 square feet, and the City’s construction updates on 23 September 2026 said it was nearing completion, on schedule for mid-October.

Sales tax is 6.9 percent: 4.0 percent City and 2.9 percent State, and Weld County has no sales tax (Taxes).

Housing

Denver Avenue is the City’s historic main street, and the City says a number of residential blocks have homes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Historic Preservation). The Planning Department’s Current Development Projects list, read in October 2026, includes the High Pointe Hills comprehensive plan amendment, rezoning and preliminary plat, final plats for Lancaster Crossing Filings 1 and 2, Sunrise and Vista Meadows Filings 3 and 4, and the Sweetgrass Meadows annexation, with a map of where each sits.

The City Council approved a Housing Needs Assessment on 5 May 2026, written under Senate Bill 24-174 and the City’s Proposition 123 commitment, and is updating its 2018 Comprehensive Plan toward 2050, with adoption scheduled between December and February (Comprehensive Plan Updates). A Three Mile Area Plan was adopted in January 2026 (Long Range Plans). This guide quotes no sale prices: the City publishes none on its pages, and the assessment itself could not be read for this page.

Schools

Weld Re-8 School District runs the schools, from its office at 200 S. Fulton Avenue (303-857-3200). The district counts 2,497 students aged 3 to 21 and calls itself a neighborhood school district with open and choice enrollment. Its schools are Little Trappers Preschool, Butler Elementary and Twombly Elementary (kindergarten to 5th grade), Homyak PK-8, Fort Lupton Middle School (6th to 8th), Fort Lupton High School (9th to 12th) and a Transition Program for ages 18 to 21 (enrollment), plus the Weld Re-8 Schools Online Academy. Choice and open enrollment is by annual application, does not guarantee a place, and parents of students attending outside their attendance area furnish the transport (choice enrollment).

The Fort Lupton Public & School Library, 370 S. Rollie Avenue, is a City department and a combined school and public library: the school board and City Council agreed the merger in 1975, the library became a founding member of what is now the High Plains Library District in 1986, and a 16,000-square-foot building attached to the high school opened in December 1993 (library history). It is open 9 am to 8 pm Monday to Thursday and 9 to 5 Friday and Saturday, closed Sunday (hours).

Getting around

The City’s Transportation page lists two highways, US 85 and Colorado 52, and notes that Colorado 52 connects I-25 and I-76. It names three airports, Denver International, Northern Colorado Regional and Platte Valley Airpark, and the Union Pacific Railroad. The City-owned golf course’s page puts Fort Lupton less than a 30-minute drive from Denver, Longmont, Boulder or Greeley (Coyote Creek).

The only transit the City lists is Via Mobility Services: a free shared-ride service for residents 60 or older or unable to drive, running weekdays 8 am to 4:30 pm, booked up to seven days ahead on 303-447-9636, available in Fort Lupton since 1 August 2023. Public Works publishes a snow and ice removal policy with street priority maps (snow plowing).

Services

• Water and sewer are the City. Its Utilities page names United Power for electricity, Xcel Energy for gas, and Xfinity, Ripple Fiber and Allo for internet; wastewater goes to Metro Water Recovery’s Northern Treatment Plant by a pipeline along US 85 (rate schedule). The 2026 residential rates are a $34.65 water base fee, $4.98 per 1,000 gallons for the first 12,000 gallons, a $16.60 sewer base fee, $5.79 per 1,000 gallons of sewer usage, a $21.40 Reg85 fee for the loans that paid for the Metro connection, and a $3.80 storm drainage fee. Utility Billing charges a $15 late fee five days after the due date and no longer shuts water off monthly; on 15 November each year, any balance more than 60 days past due goes to Weld County for collection on the property tax bill. Renters and family members not on the account need a notarized Third Party form to get account information.
• Trash. The City’s pages name no hauler. Public Works runs Clean-Up Days for residents each spring and fall at 800 12th Street (details), and household hazardous waste goes free to Weld County’s facility at 5500 Highway 52 in Dacono, up to 200 pounds a day (hazardous waste).
• Fire and ambulance is the Fort Lupton Fire Protection District, a special district separate from the City that covers about 88 square miles, most of it outside the city limits, from three staffed stations: 1121 Denver Avenue, 2999 9th Street and 2470 S. Rollie Avenue (stations). It answers more than 2,000 calls a year, about 85 percent of them medical; Platte Valley Ambulance keeps two ambulances at Stations 1 and 2, and dispatch is the Weld County Regional Dispatch Center in Greeley.
• Police is the Fort Lupton Police Department at 130 S. McKinley Avenue, lobby 8 am to 5 pm weekdays; non-emergency dispatch 720-652-4222, records 303-857-4011 (contact).
• Recreation is the City’s Parks & Recreation department. The Recreation Center opened in 2004 at 48,000 square feet with a leisure pool, lazy river, 139-foot water slide, climbing wall and elevated track, and reopened on 28 September 2024 with a new gym, fitness center and warm-water pool (expansion). Residents, meaning people living within the city limits, pay less: $6 a day or $323 a year for an adult, $630 a year for a family (admissions). The Community Park playground and splash park reopened in June 2024 (Community Park), Koshio Park at First Street and McKinley Avenue is being rebuilt and is due to reopen in late fall 2026 (Planning news), and Coyote Creek Golf Course, 222 Clubhouse Drive, is an 18-hole, par-71 course owned and operated by the City. A Parks & Trails Vision Plan begun in September 2025 is due in winter 2026 (vision plan).

Before you decide

• Metro districts and the tax bill. The City’s Taxes page lists the mill levies every address in the city pays: Weld County, the City, the fire district, Weld Re-8, the High Plains Library District, Aims Community College and Northern Colorado Water, and says more may apply if the property is in a metro district or other special district. Look the address up on the Weld County Property Portal.
• Inside or outside the city line. The fire district says most of its area is outside the city limits, and the Recreation Center’s resident rates apply only within the corporate limits. The Planning Department’s zoning page has the zoning map and a Zoning Verification Request form; the department asks that zoning be verified with it by phone on 303-857-6694.
• Water in summer. In 2026 the City barred watering between 10 am and 6 pm from 1 May to 30 September, allowed car washing only with a bucket or a hose with a shut-off nozzle, and gave one three-week waiver for new seed or sod (Water Restrictions 2026).
• Schools. Choice enrollment into a school other than the neighborhood one has to be renewed each year and can be rescinded if the school fills (Weld Re-8).