Moving to Longmont, Colorado

What you are moving to

Longmont is a home-rule city of 98,885 people at the 2020 census, up from 86,270 in 2010, in north-eastern Boulder County and extending east into western Weld County, with US 287 running through the middle of it as Main Street. Members of the Chicago-Colorado Colony founded it in 1871, and the name, the City’s About page explains, joins Major Stephen H. Long, who explored the St. Vrain valley in 1820, to the French word for mountain; the same page puts the city at about 30 square miles with more than 1,500 acres of parks and open space. The 2020 census counted 39,683 households, a median age of 39.1 and a population 24.7 percent Hispanic or Latino, and the City’s growth page expects about 24,000 more residents by 2035. The county line runs through the city and matters more than the address suggests: the City’s new-resident page tells newcomers to sign up for Boulder or Weld County emergency alerts depending on where they live, so check which county a house is in. The history piece has the rest of the story.

Housing

The City’s 2023 Housing Needs Assessment, prepared by Root Policy Research, is the plainest statement of the market. It found a median sale price of $611,421, affordable to 32 percent of Longmont households and 15 percent of its renters; an average market-rate rent in 2023 of $1,700, and a median of $1,950 in new buildings; and more than half of renters and one in five owners spending over 30 percent of income on housing. The City had 2,696 income-restricted homes, 6.66 percent of the stock, against a goal of 12 percent by 2035, and it requires 12 percent of the units in every new residential development to be affordable, built on site or met by a fee, off-site units or donated land. The same page says 72 percent of the city’s housing in 2021 was single-family, detached or attached, and that the City, short of land and committed to its open space, is steering growth to infill and apartments under Envision Longmont, the comprehensive plan Council adopted in 2016. Before buying near a creek, check the address against the City’s floodplain maps. The listings sites in the sidebar show what is for sale.

Schools

Longmont’s public schools are St. Vrain Valley Schools, headquartered at 395 S. Pratt Parkway (303-776-6200): about 33,000 students in 60 schools and programs across 411 square miles, the seventh-largest district in Colorado, reaching from the Continental Divide onto the plains and taking in 13 communities, from Lyons and Hygiene to Erie, Frederick, Mead and Dacono, in parts of Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. The district groups its schools into feeder systems, each a high school with its middle and elementary schools behind it: the Longmont feeder runs from Central, Hygiene, Mountain View, Northridge and Sanborn elementaries through Longs Peak and Westview middle schools to Longmont High, and Silver Creek, Skyline and Niwot are among the others. Every address has neighborhood schools, and the district’s boundary lookup returns them, or names the right district for an address outside St. Vrain; boundary questions go to its Planning Department at 303-682-7229. To attend any other school, apply through open enrollment: for 2027–28 the window is December 1 to 15, 2026, schools answer by January 8, 2027, families confirm by January 21, and getting an open-enrolled student to school is the family’s job. Charter schools run their own admissions.

Getting around

Inside the city the fixed-route buses are free: Ride Free Longmont, paid for from the City’s Street Fund, covers local routes 323, 324, 326 and 327 with no card, pass or ID, and a transfer earns credit toward an RTD regional fare. RIDE Longmont, the on-demand service the City runs with Via and RTD, costs $2 a trip, $1 for students, seniors and riders with disabilities, booked by app or at 970-538-9097, from 6 am to 8 pm Monday to Saturday and 9 to 5 on Sunday. RTD’s trains do not reach Longmont, the City’s transit page notes, but its regional buses do: the BOLT runs between Downtown Boulder Station and 23rd and Main by way of Colorado 119, the Niwot Park-n-Ride and the 8th and Coffman Park-n-Ride (97 spaces, 775 Coffman Street), and the LD1 runs from Hover and Boston and 8th and Coffman down US 287 through Lafayette to the US 36 and Broomfield station and Denver Union Station. On the timetables in effect from September 27, 2026 to January 2, 2027, a three-hour pass is $2.75 and a day pass $5.50, and riders 19 and under ride free. To the north, FLEX, run by Transfort, links Fort Collins, Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont and Boulder on weekdays and Saturdays, and the City lists it as free. The sidebar has the driving distances. Off the road, the City’s greenways are ten trail corridors along creeks and ditches, open around the clock to anyone moving through, with trailheads open from an hour before sunrise to an hour after sunset; the City posts a trail-status map and a bike map. The one the City calls the crown jewel of its trail system, the St. Vrain Greenway, runs about 8 miles from Golden Ponds to Sandstone Ranch and connects to the Left Hand Greenway; parts of it are still being rebuilt after the September 2013 flood, which the City calls the most devastating in Longmont’s history.

Utilities, trash, fire, police

Starting service. Connect City utility service at MyUtilityAccount; for help, call 303-651-8664 or visit the Civic Center.
Electricity is Longmont Power & Communications, the City’s community-owned, not-for-profit utility since 1912 and a member of Platte River Power Authority, at 1100 S. Sherman Street (303-651-8386; outages 303-776-0011).
Internet is NextLight, the City’s own fiber network: symmetrical plans at $39.95 a month for 100 Mbps, $69.95 for 1 gig, $149.95 for 2.5 gig and $249.95 for 8 gig, with free installation and no contract or data cap.
Water, sewer and stormwater are the City’s Water Department at the Civic Center, 350 Kimbark Street (303-651-8416; after hours, Public Safety dispatch).
Natural gas is Xcel Energy, 1-800-895-4999; for a gas smell, 1-800-895-2999.
Trash, recycling and compost are collected by the City’s Waste Services at every single-family home and many multi-family ones; apartment residents ask the property manager. You pick a package: trash from $7.10 a month for a 48-gallon cart every other week to $26.30 for a 96-gallon cart weekly, recycling every other week at no extra charge, and curbside compost, alternating with recycling, for $9.90 a month more on a 12-month minimum; every account also pays a $2.96 monthly waste management fee. The Longmont Recycling Center at 140 Martin Street is open 8 to 4, Monday to Saturday, with cardboard and single-stream bins around the clock.
Police and fire are one department, Longmont Public Safety, at the Safety and Justice Center, 225 Kimbark Street: 911 in an emergency, 303-651-8501 around the clock for police or fire otherwise.
Library. The City’s Longmont Public Library at 355 Emery Street (303-651-8470) is open 9 to 8 Monday to Thursday, 9 to 5 Friday and Saturday and 1 to 5 Sunday. Any Colorado resident 16 or older can get a free card with a photo ID and proof of address, and cards from Boulder, Broomfield, Clearview, Gunbarrel, Lafayette, Louisville and Loveland work for most materials.

Government

Longmont is a home-rule city with a council-manager government under a charter adopted in 1961. The City Council has seven members: a mayor elected to a two-year term and six members to four-year terms, three of them from the City’s three wards (Ward 1 is roughly the north-east, Ward 2 the south and south-west, Ward 3 the north-west) and three at large. The mayor is Susie Hidalgo-Fahring. Council meets on Tuesdays at 7 pm in the Council Chambers at the Civic Center, 350 Kimbark Street, streamed live on the City’s YouTube channel; in October 2026 its calendar had regular meetings on the 6th and 20th, a joint meeting with the St. Vrain Valley Board of Education on the 21st and a study session on the 27th. The City Manager, Harold Dominguez, runs the operation. The November 3, 2026 ballot carries four City questions. The first, 3A, is a public-safety tax; the City’s ballot information cites growth from 86,651 residents in 2009 to 104,178 in 2025. It would add 0.33 percent to the sales and use tax and 2.44 mills to the property tax (about $75 a year on a $500,000 house), to pay for 43 police, 31 fire and 12 collaborative-services positions over ten years and build a Fire Station 7 on the south-west side. The others are a charter amendment giving open space the voter protection parks and water rights have had since 1989, ranked-choice voting from the 2029 election, and a realignment of council terms if ranked voting passes.

Living here

Saturdays from April to November are the Longmont Farmers Market, 8 am to 1 pm in the north lot of the Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road, through November 21 this year, with local artisans on the fourth Saturday of each month. Summer peaks with Independence Weekend, two days in 2026: a free backyard concert in Roosevelt Park on July 3, then the Longmont Symphony Orchestra’s Concert in the Park at Thompson Park, with cannons for the 1812 Overture, a family festival downtown, a drone show by St. Vrain students over Dickens Farm and fireworks on the Fourth. Fall is the Day of the Dead Family Celebration, which the City bills as the longest-running public one in Colorado, marking its 26th anniversary on October 24 at 4th Avenue and Kimbark Street, and the Halloween costume parade on foot down Main Street on the morning of October 31, with trick-or-treating at downtown businesses after it. Winter is the Longmont Lights Holiday Parade of lighted floats on Main Street, at 5 pm on December 12 this year, and the lights in Roosevelt Park, on nightly from late November into early January. Year-round there are the nature areas, from McIntosh Lake to Sandstone Ranch, the breweries, and the Longmont Museum, whose new galleries open with a free all-day grand reopening on October 17. Families should read Longmont with kids. What is on this week is on the events page.