Sewer Restictive Covenant Discussion - Liveblogging
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 7/17/08 @ 3:27 pm - Filed Under Local Politics
3:15 PM - Any time sewer service is provided outside the incorporated boundary of the city then those recipients are required by the city to sign a waiver of remonstrance in regards to annexation. The commission asked if Holmestead Acres would be required to to sign that waiver and the answer from the city was “Yes”.
3:20 PM - Paul Moss was very concerned about the city annexing that portion of the county in the future and with history as his guide I’d say he should be. He said he wants to see septic relief for the area but that his concern of annexation outweighs that benefit. “It’s going to be awfully hard for the city not to look at that (Canyon Cliffs) area.”
3:25 PM - Ted Nitza admits that future septic relief is being considered for the area but that is a long-term solution and would require completely different piping. The current pipes as part of this project would not be sufficient to add more than maybe a dozen more homes. I think the important point here is that the city does have plans to expand sewage to the area and that means more development.
3:31 PM - Discussion of a letter asking that if the restrictive covenants are listed then all residents be allowed to get relief and not just those that sign up the quickets. A representative of the sewer district said that only the 64 Holmestead Acres homes will get the septic relief.
3:35 PM - Bill Brown says he’s having a hard time understanding why the sewer district and the city didn’t put together a cost proposal on helping the Holmestead Acres people before now. The answer was that the city wasn’t willing to increase volume then but they are now. Brown keeps asking “why” and there’s no straight answer coming from the sewer district representative.
3:38 PM - Ted Nitza steps in and says that nobody thought about a way to find new financing (public-private parnership) to overhaul the lift station and that’s why nothing was done in the past. Once that idea was put on the table then new ideas of how to provide septic relief to Holmestead Acres were generated.
3:42 PM - Brown says he just doesn’t understand why such a dire situation like Holmestead Acres’ septic failure hasn’t been addresed until now. He asks why it couldn’t move forward without Canyon Cliffs? Nitza says that the septic relief could move forward without Canyon Cliffs but they would lose the financial partnership with the developer.
3:45 PM - Brown then asks why the sewer district doesn’t just get a bond to fix the issue. Nitza said they are a pay-as-you-go district and do not have the financial capacity to commission any more engineering work. He also said there are a number of project ahead of Holmestead Acres in the future-work queue.
3:57 PM - The sewer district admits that the Canyon Cliffs soil is acceptable for septic systems and that the development could be build without the permanent sewer
4:01 PM - President of Holmestead Acres neighborhood association addresses the commission and says that when the sewer district first heard their petition to hook into Canyon Run the sewer district said “Nobody will ever hook in to Canyon Run and that was it - it was over. So we never thought the capacity was available at Canyon Run.”
4:08 PM - President of Holmestead Acres says anyone in his neighborhood would be a fool not to hook up to the sewer system because of the financial incentive to them. But he says others may still not approve of the whole Canyon Cliffs plan. Says “there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority are in support of this short of selling their first born kid. If there are conditions to be had then fine we’ll put that into the final petition but I want you to know there is solid support.”
4:14 PM - Citizen Dennis Baker addresses the commission and says he went door-to-door in Holmestead and found that none of the homes were finding problems with their septic but that they were in favor of using the sewer. He said that there was some confusion by the residents about how much it would cost. He said that most residents were willing to spend $14k/each years ago and that was a lot more money then the developer is putting in now (Mike Thomas says they will spend ~$210k) so he questions why it wasn’t done before. Bill Brown says he wonders the same thing.
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