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NEW STREETS, WATER, OTHER UTILITIES HIGH COST FOR LAKE AUBURN NEIGHBORHOOD With an unanimous 5-0 vote from the Victoria City Council on February 22nd, and with seemingly little or no gasps from the audience, the entire list of recommended utility improvements were approved for the Lake Auburn Drive neighborhood of Victoria. Gravel streets will be reconstructed into new 24-foot wide paved streets with concrete curb and gutter. Drain tile and storm sewer will be installed. Municipal water will come to the neighborhood for the first time. The sanitary sewer system will be replaced. All of the above was recommended by the city engineer. The neighborhood will also be receiving assessments totally nearly $20,000 each, which is the highest per unit assessment of any of the past street and utility improvement projects in the City of Victoria. Before the hearing was open to the public, City Engineer Cara Geheren summarized conditions in the neighborhood. “There is a lot of erosion,” she said. “City water has now become available across Highway 5. Their sanitary sewer was built in 1985; essentially each house has a septic system of its own. If you want to upgrade to a more traditional system, you’d want to do it before you build a brand new road.” She said the total project cost is estimated to be $1.25 million. Of that amount, $514,069 is for streets; $201,529 is for city watermain extension; $537,630 is for sanitary sewer replacement. As in past similar projects, the city picks up 50% of street and storm sewer costs while residents pay 100% of municipal water costs and the city pays 100% of sanitary sewer. Cara pointed out that the estimated assessment of $19,984 per household, an amount that can decrease but not increase, can be deferred for hardship or senior citizens, and that if financed over 15 years at 6% the annual payment would be approximately $2,000. She said there are hookup charges and core fees for property owners beyond the assessment cost. She said that construction would run from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2011 with assessments being levied in January 2012. Residents were then invited to speak. Gail Carlson reminded councilmembers that the neighborhood consists of lake homes and non-lake homes. She said the taxable value of the lake homes averages $460,000 while the taxable value of the non-lake homes averages $220,000. “My family doesn’t live on the lake,” she said. “Adding 10% of the value of our home would be hard. I don’t know if we’d be able to pay this. I’d urge council to put this aside for three to five years. There have been two foreclosures in our neighborhood where the houses sold for $160,000 to $165,000. The health of our neighborhood is not very strong.” She suggested culverts to correct erosion problems. The city engineer replied, “Public Works has spent a fair amount of time in the neighborhood. We’d have to carve out ditches for culverts.” Resident Todd Brown stated, “We get significant runoff on our lot. The only answer I see is a stormwater system and gutters. Ours is an example of water running directly into Lake Auburn, but water quality of the lake is high.”
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March 2010 |
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For over two hours, these three little Carlson brothers played with each other, flew paper airplanes, and remained quiet as church mice while city councilmembers spent an hour on the consent agenda and then another 90 minutes while their parents and other residents at the Lake Auburn Drive neighborhood discussed the pros and cons of new streets, new utilities, and a $20,000 per unit assessment. The boys are (l-r) Joshua, 8; Jacob, 3; and Caleb, 7. |