What is the Forest Hills Met
My feeble attempt to answer questions I think you
Disclaimer I found all of this information online (so it must be true). You can confirm, deny, twist, believe or not as much as you want, because everything I am saying in these next few pages is not only to best of my knowledge and understanding, it is out there waiting for you to read and digest. I’ll even provide links.
Real Disclaimer Any views expressed herein are mine alone and not necessarily those of the FHMD board as a whole.
WHICH CAME FIRST? The chicken or the egg? The neighborhood or the district? FHMD came first. I know, I know... everyone thinks a neighborhood is developed first. Houses are built. People move in. Someone decides we don’t want little pink houses in our neighborhood. An HOA is formed, then an ACC. Someone has to handle all the billings, and water, and sewer so FHMD is formed. Not! (Technically, if you’re like me, you’ve never thought about it.)
It all started in 1979 In 1979, some very savvy businessmen decided that Denver needed a beautifully built mountain-living, custom-home community within close proximity to the city. (One can only assume that what they really thought was that Genesee was doing great, so why not get in on the action?) In order to do that, they needed to find property they could develop, but in order to develop it, which was outside the city limits (unincorporated), they had to provide water and a means to dispose of sewer—hence, the FHMD. 245 acres was prime and ready for the 56 homes and 88 condos that were intended for this land. There were already 5 wells, AND plenty of room to build the 6 6
Riva Reader | July / August 2014
ponds proposed and the tennis courts and the pool and rec center. Obviously, plans changed as you can tell by the map above, because the Village (which is the section I live in) is not even part of the original plans (not to mention we have only 3 ponds, no pool, tennis court, or rec center, and only 8 condos).
What is the FHMD? The Forest Hills Metro District was established by the original developer of Riva Chase, the Anasazi Group. The FHMD was formed by the developer and by petition to the Jefferson County District Court. The District was created pursuant to Title 32, (C.R.S. 32-1-203) of the Colorado Revised Statutes, known as the Special District Act, for the purpose of providing water and sanitation services, including a water supply, treatment, storage, transmission and distribution system, and a sanitary sewer collection and treatment system, for the inhabitants of the District. In other words, the FHMD was established to manage our water plant and sewer distribution plant and operations. We cannot have a community without