Photo: Wendy Wilde
(Waukee, IA) -- The results of Waukee's special census project are in. The Des Moines suburb has grown nearly 8,000 people since the last count, which was conducted in 2020. The new count: 31,823.
Heather Behrens is with the City of Waukee.
"Updating it kind of mid-cycle for the normal 10-year census means that we'll get an extra $1.1 million per year in funding for our roads for the next few years," Behrens says.
The focus will be on smaller problems with the roads.
"Small things like potholes, minor reconstruction," Behrens says. "That sort of thing."
The city's rapid growth has had numerous effects. The cost of the city operating its gas utility has gone up. They have a new water tower, which is about five times the size of the old one according to Director of Economic Development Jennifer Brown.
"It was about 500,000," Brown says. "[The new one] is about 2.5 million gallons of water."
The city projects it could eclipse the population mark of 50,000 by 2040.