Coloradoan: The town of Windsor has reached another population milestone: 19,000.
Well, 19,001, to be exact.
“That’s the estimate we have based on last year’s information,” Windsor director of planning Joe Plummer said. “We won’t know for sure, of course, until the 2010 census report.”
The new milestone means the amount of growth since 2000 has increased by more than 8,000 residents, or 74.5 percent.
Plummer has seen the town’s growth explode during his nearly 13 years in the community’s government.
“When I started, the population was not quite at 6,000,” he said. “It’s been a pretty amazing transformation.”
The boom started in the late 1990s with a corresponding spike in building permits but slowed at the end of 2007 and into 2008 when the real estate bubble burst.
The number of building permits pulled for single-family homes steadily climbed until it peaked in 2000 with 451.
The number dipped a little and then matched its peak again in 2005.
Since then, the numbers have steadily decreased.
In 2006, 331 single- family home building permits were pulled.
That dropped to 224 in 2007 and just 119 in 2008, marking the third consecutive year with declines in building permits.
That decline might continue since there appears to be a large inventory of available lots and lots where building permits have already been pulled.
According to the latest information provided by the town’s planning department, there are 12,797 lots platted for development, of which 3,000 have building permits already pulled.
By the numbers
Following is a review of Windsor’s population growth this decade:
Year/population/change
> 2000/10,884/13.6
> 2001/12,162 /11.8
> 2002 /13,125 /8.0
> 2003/14,045/7.0
> 2004 /15,407/9.7
> 2005/16,750 /8.7
> 2006/17,545/4.7
> 2007/18,008/2.6
> 2008 /19,001/5.5*
> Decade change: 8,117/74.5
*as of Dec. 31, 2008