Date: Fri 08-Sep-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

sewer-residential-assessment

Full Text:

WPCA Sets Residential Sewer Assessment Rate

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) members have hammered out a sewer

assessment formula they consider to be an equitable mechanism to divide sewer

system construction costs among residential sewer users, non-residential sewer

users, and town taxpayers.

WPCA members August 31 selected $9,600 as the amount for "one residential

sewer assessment unit," the standard of reference which would be used to

calculate the size of 20 annual payments to be made by residential sewer users

to cover the costs of sewer system construction.

WPCA members had been considering setting the assessment amount at $9,500,

$9,900, or $11,000, but after reviewing assessment data on the residential

properties to be sewered, they decided that $9,600 is a more equitable amount.

Under the $9,600 sewer assessment formula, the local share of sewer

construction costs would be divided roughly into thirds. About one-third of

the local costs would be covered by residential sewer users; approximately

one-third would be covered by non-residential sewer users; and roughly

one-third would be paid by town property taxes, according to WPCA member

Richard Zang.

Some $18.5 million is the local share of the overall $30.4 million sewer

system construction project.

Categories

The $9,600 residential sewer assessment would be paid off by the owners of

residential properties with sewer service in 20 annual installments at a 2

percent subsidized interest rate.

The sewer assessments for non-residential properties will be set by the WPCA

during the next year, Mr Zang said. Those assessments are to be set based on

case-by-case appraisals of those non-residential properties.

The $9,600 residential sewer assessment is based on the increase in market

value that access to sewers will provide to houses with four bedrooms or

fewer.

In the sewer district, there are 567 residential units. Of these, 360 units

have less than four bedrooms; 152 have four bedrooms; and 55 have more than

four bedrooms.

The sewer assessment plan may require properties with more than four bedrooms

to pay proportionately higher sewer assessments than the $9,600 figure.

The kind of numbers which the WPCA is using for its sewer assessment plan are

"good numbers" for assessment purposes, said Peter Grose, the sewering project

director for Fuss and O'Neill, Inc, the town's sewer consultant.

Lesher Glendinning Municipal Services, the town's real estate appraisal

consultant for the sewering project, states that a sewer assessment formula

based on a $9,600 residential assessment is "defensible" in court if

individuals who believe their sewer assessments are too high file court

challenges against the town, according to Mr Alagna.

The WPCA was scheduled to present its residential sewer assessment formula to

the Legislative Council on September 6 for council review.

"The council has a voice and a strong voice in this," Mr Alagna said of the

council's review of the sewer assessment formula.

"We're going to fight for this (assessment)," Mr Alagna said.