Hot Sulphur Springs Just Ended a Five-Year Building Freeze. One Neighborhood Still Can't Build.

You find a listing for a few acres above Byers Canyon, gold medal water below, 360-degree views, and a price that looks almost reasonable for Grand County in 2026. The listing says water, electric, and town sewer are available. You picture a cabin going up next spring.

Before you write that offer, ask one more question: is this parcel inside a boundary that a town ordinance still treats differently than every other lot in Hot Sulphur Springs? For five years, the answer to whether you could build here at all depended less on your plans and more on the condition of a sewer lagoon liner installed a decade ago. That changed this spring, but not all the way, and not for everyone.

Five years, one ordinance number, and the reason it took this long

Hot Sulphur Springs first adopted a moratorium on new development permits on January 21, 2021, after a wave of building activity in 2020 outran the town's water and sewer capacity. The exception carved out at the time allowed single-family homes to move forward only if they already had an existing tap and needed no utility extensions or variances. Everything else waited.

The wait had a specific cause. The town's wastewater lagoon liners, expected to last twenty years, failed well short of that mark, and groundwater and stormwater began working their way into the sewer pipes. Layered on top of that, runoff from the East Troublesome Fire burn scar has continued to push sediment into the Colorado River for years after the 2020 fire, spiking turbidity at the town's water intake during heavy rain and snowmelt. Fixing the wastewater side alone was priced at roughly $1.8 million, and the town needed both an engineering plan and a way to pay for it before trustees would consider lifting the freeze.

They finally did, on April 16, 2026, via an emergency ordinance, Ordinance No. 2026-04-16-424, timed specifically to reopen the door ahead of the summer building season.

"I can't put it strongly enough how hard we have been working to get this fixed."

That is Town Clerk Katie LaDrig, describing the years of infrastructure work behind the decision. It is worth sitting with, because it tells you this was not a routine paperwork lift. It was the end of a genuine capacity problem that took half a decade to solve.

The exception the ordinance still carves out

Here is the detail a listing sheet is unlikely to mention. The same ordinance that ended the townwide moratorium explicitly states that the Himebaugh HOA property is not included in the lift. The moratorium remains in place there until the town determines otherwise.

If you're looking at land or an older lot anywhere near that subdivision, the general good news about Hot Sulphur Springs reopening for building does not automatically apply to your specific parcel. This is exactly the kind of boundary line that gets lost between an MLS listing and a closing table. Before you assume a tap is coming, confirm in writing with the town, not just the seller, that your parcel sits outside that carve-out.

What the freeze explains about the price swings you've been seeing

If you've been comparing Hot Sulphur Springs numbers across a few different sites this year, you've probably noticed the average price quoted for the town swings wildly, from the high $400,000s on one source to the mid $800,000s on another, sometimes within the same season. That is not a data error. It is a mix effect, and the moratorium is the reason the mix is so unstable.

For five years, a large share of what could legally trade hands in Hot Sulphur Springs was land, not finished homes, because land was often the only thing a buyer could purchase without running into the tap freeze. Finished single-family homes with existing service kept selling, but the pool of new construction and subdividable lots sat mostly frozen or priced as raw acreage rather than buildable homesites. When a batch of vacant parcels lists in a given month, the average price for the town drops. When a few finished homes carry the month instead, it jumps. In a market this thin, with well under fifty active listings at any given time, a handful of transactions moves the average more than it would in Winter Park or Granby.

That volatility should read as information, not noise. It tells you the town's inventory has been shaped by a regulatory bottleneck for years, and it means whatever "median price" a portal shows you this month says less about long-term value than it does about what happened to be for sale when the snapshot was taken.

The rate hikes that came with the fix

Lifting the moratorium did not come free, and the cost shows up in your monthly utility bill rather than your purchase price. To qualify for a 30-year loan that covers the bulk of the lagoon liner replacement, the town raised water and sewer rates 20 percent in 2024 and another 20 percent in 2025. Compounded, that is close to a 44 percent increase in two years, and it applies whether you're buying a finished home today or a lot you plan to build on once a tap becomes available.

If you're running numbers on carrying costs for vacant land, or comparing Hot Sulphur Springs utility costs against Fraser or Granby, use the current post-increase rate schedule, not whatever figure shows up in an older blog post or a listing sheet that hasn't been refreshed since before 2024.

Two ballot measures, two different answers

In November 2024, Hot Sulphur Springs put two tax questions to voters, and the results tell you something about who the town expects to fund its infrastructure going forward. A proposed 4 percent use tax on construction materials, which would have been paid by builders at the permit counter, failed decisively, with about 81 percent voting against it. A separate 3 percent lodging tax on hotel and short-term rental stays passed, but barely, by a margin of just 11 votes.

For a buyer planning to build, that outcome is good news at the permit desk. There's no separate construction materials tax layered onto your project costs. For a buyer eyeing a short-term rental once building activity picks back up, budget for that 3 percent lodging tax on top of whatever platform fees and county requirements already apply, since it funds the same infrastructure improvements that made your tap possible in the first place.

What this changes if you're about to make an offer

• Ask the town, not just the listing agent, whether your specific parcel is currently eligible for a water or sewer tap, and get it in writing before you go under contract.
• Confirm whether the property falls inside the Himebaugh HOA boundary, where the moratorium is still active.
• Price your carrying costs using the current rate schedule, which reflects two consecutive 20 percent increases.
• If short-term rental income is part of your plan, factor in the 3 percent lodging tax alongside any county-level requirements.
• Treat any single "average price" you see quoted for the town as a snapshot of that month's mix of land versus finished homes, not a stable benchmark.

A few questions worth asking directly

Does the April 2026 ordinance mean every lot in Hot Sulphur Springs can get a tap now? Not automatically. The ordinance lifted the townwide freeze but specifically excluded the Himebaugh HOA property, which remains under the prior restriction until the town says otherwise.

Why did water and sewer rates go up so much? The town raised rates 20 percent in 2024 and 20 percent again in 2025 to qualify for a 30-year loan covering roughly $1.8 million in lagoon liner replacement, part of the infrastructure work required before the moratorium could be lifted.

Is there a construction materials tax I should budget for? No. Voters rejected that proposed 4 percent tax in November 2024. A separate 3 percent lodging tax on overnight stays did pass and applies to hotel and short-term rental guests.

Hot Sulphur Springs is finally open for building again after a genuine, well-documented infrastructure problem, and that is worth knowing before you write an offer on land here. It is also worth knowing exactly where the exceptions still live. If you're weighing a parcel in Hot Sulphur Springs, or comparing it against land in Granby, Fraser, or Tabernash, Stacy Strayer and her team can help you confirm tap status on a specific lot before you're locked into a contract, and if you're on the other side of the table wondering what your existing Grand County property is worth in this market, request a free home valuation any time.