On December 9, 2025, the elected board of the Raindance Metropolitan Districts met in a conference room at 1625 Pelican Lakes Point in Windsor and voted to certify the property tax rate that homeowners inside Raindance's boundaries are paying right now. They don't work for Weld County. They don't work for the Town of Windsor. The number they signed off on that morning is sitting inside every tax bill mailed to an address inside those district boundaries this year.
If you're shopping for a home in Windsor, that meeting matters more than almost anything on the listing sheet. Windsor already straddles two counties, and the county line alone can move your base tax rate. But layered on top of that county rate, in subdivision after subdivision across town, sits a second and often larger number set by a metropolitan district board that answers to nobody at the county or the town. Windsor has more than twenty of these districts operating inside its limits, each with its own name, its own five-person board, and its own annual vote on what homeowners will pay. The county assesses the property. The district decides how much of your bill is theirs.
The Number on the Listing Is a Receipt, Not a Forecast
Every property tax figure you see on a listing is historical. It reflects what the county actually billed last year, calculated from an assessed value that was locked in months before that. For an established resale home, that lag rarely causes surprises. For new construction inside a metro district, it can make the number nearly meaningless.
Here's why. A metro district exists to finance the roads, water lines, and sewer infrastructure a new subdivision needs before the first house is even built. The district issues bonds to pay for that work, then repays the debt through a mill levy charged to every home inside its boundaries. If a lot was raw land as of the assessment date, last year's tax bill reflects raw land value, not the finished house sitting on it today, and certainly not the levy the district's board has already voted to charge going forward. A buyer who prices a new build off last year's tax line is pricing off a number the district itself has already moved past.
Windsor Doesn't Have One Metro District. It Has Dozens.
This is the part that catches people off guard. Windsor isn't governed by a single "Windsor metro district" the way it's governed by one town council. The Town of Windsor's own metro district page points to a patchwork of separately organized districts operating under Colorado's Title 32, each approved through its own service plan under the town's Chapter 19 review policy and Model Metropolitan District Service Plan.
Names you'll run into when you pull a title commitment on a Windsor property include Raindance, Water Valley, Windsor Highlands, Windsor Northwest, Steeplechase, Cornerstone, Fossil Ridge, Highpointe Estates, and Jacoby Farms, among others. Some subdivisions carry no metro district at all and rely on a straightforward homeowners association instead. There is no shortcut here. The only way to know which board sets your number is to check the specific parcel.
What the Same District Has Charged in Different Years
Mill levies inside these districts aren't fixed. They move within whatever cap the service plan allows, and that cap is often well above what's currently being charged. A Windsor Highlands sub-district's own filings, tracked through Larimer County assessor records and compiled in a City of Loveland metro district summary, show a certified levy that has held in the 79.5 to 81.5 mill range across several recent years, while the district's own service plan sets its approved cap as high as 114.8 mills. The board isn't currently charging anywhere near its ceiling. It could, without asking anyone's permission but its own.
Zoom out to the county level and the range gets wider still. Windsor's own tax information page notes that Weld County alone contains roughly 150 overlapping tax districts creating more than 1,500 distinct tax areas, with combined mill levies ranging from about 60 to 148 mills depending on exactly which boundaries a parcel falls inside.
What you're looking at | What it actually tells you |
|---|---|
Windsor Highlands sub-district mill levy history | Certified rate has held around 79.5 to 81.5 mills in recent years, but its own service plan caps it as high as 114.8 mills |
Weld County-wide mill levy range | Combined levies across roughly 150 overlapping tax districts run from about 60 to 148 mills |
Raindance Metropolitan Districts, 2026 cycle | Boards adopted new 2026 budgets and certified fresh mill levies at their December 9, 2025 meeting |
Put those three rows together and the pattern is clear. The rate you're comparing across two Windsor listings isn't a fixed local tax. It's a moving number, set independently by whichever board governs that specific address, inside a range that can already be wider than most buyers assume.
The Disclosure Right Colorado Already Gave You
You're not left to guess at this on your own. Colorado law requires that for any residential sale closing on or after January 1, 2024, if the property sits inside a metropolitan district organized on or after January 1, 2000, the seller must provide the buyer with the district's official website. That detail comes straight from Colorado's own contract requirements, explained plainly in a breakdown of the statute written for agents handling exactly this kind of transaction. Because Windsor's major districts, including Raindance and the various Water Valley filings, were organized well after 2000, this disclosure applies across a large share of the newer subdivisions in town.
There's also a state-level accountability layer worth knowing about. In 2023, Colorado created a Metropolitan District Homeowners' Rights Task Force through House Bill 23-1105, specifically to examine how these boards set levies, handle foreclosure for unpaid assessments, and communicate with the homeowners inside their boundaries. Windsor Highlands and other districts are still required to notify residents of that task force in their current communications, a sign that lawmakers found the underlying dynamic significant enough to formally study.
Beyond that statutory notice, Colorado's Division of Real Estate also spells out your right, once under contract, to receive the governing and financial documentation tied to any association or district covering the property. The documents exist. Getting them before you're locked into a deadline is the part that's on you.
What to Pull Before You Write the Offer
- Get the exact district name and number off the title commitment, not the marketing name a builder or listing uses for the neighborhood. Windsor Highlands alone has multiple numbered sub-districts, and they don't all carry the same levy.
- Ask for the current certified mill levy for this tax year, and the maximum mill levy allowed under the service plan. A low starting number tells you almost nothing about the ceiling above it.
- Find out whether the district still has bonds outstanding, and what the repayment timeline looks like. Outstanding debt is what drives a levy upward over time.
- Request the statutory disclosure you're owed if the district was organized in 2000 or later, including the district's official website.
- Pull the most recent board minutes or budget resolution. Raindance's own board filed exactly this kind of record for its December 2025 budget cycle, and it's a public document any buyer or agent can request before writing an offer.
FAQ
Does every home in Windsor sit inside a metro district? No. Some subdivisions carry only a homeowners association with no metro district involved, and some rely on the Town of Windsor directly for services. The only way to know for a specific address is to check the title work.
Is being inside a metro district a warning sign? Not on its own. It's a financing tool Colorado towns use to build infrastructure for new development without billing the whole town for one subdivision's roads and utilities. The real question isn't whether a district exists. It's what its current levy is, what its cap allows, and whether debt is still being repaid.
Can the mill levy go up after I close? Yes, up to whatever ceiling the service plan sets. That's why the approved cap matters just as much as this year's certified number, and why it belongs on your due diligence list before the offer, not after.
Windsor's tax picture isn't decided in one place. It's decided district by district, board by board, often years before a buyer ever sees the address. Kris Rogers has spent more than 30 years living in Colorado, with a hands-on background in remodeling, land, excavation, concrete, and foundations that shows up in how he reads a service plan before a client ever signs a contract. If you're comparing homes across Windsor's metro districts and want someone who checks the board minutes before the offer goes in, Premier Colorado Property is ready to start that conversation.
