At its February 3 meeting, planning commissioners, a planner, an engineer and select board member and the town administrator, discussed the degree to which Waitsfield's Town Plan relies on the availability of public infrastructure such as municipal water and sewer. Those present also discussed how such public infrastructure would allow the town to create a TIF (tax increment finance) district and become eligible to capture all new property taxes on any development in that district -- possibly enough to mitigate tax impacts of municipal wastewater.
PHASES
Last year at Town Meeting, town voters turned down two phases of the proposed project. Phase 1 would have created a small system with the capacity of 18,000 gallons a day for Irasville and disposed of at the Munn Field at a cost of $5.6 million. Phase 2 would have built a wastewater treatment plant at the field, increasing disposal capacity to almost 90,000 gallons a day, for a cost of $6.5 million. When proposed in March, the town had approximately $3 million in grants and loans towards the project. Had the whole project been approved, it would have added 3.5 cents to the tax rate, adding about $40 to the tax bill of a property appraised at $250,000.
Town voters also turned down a proposed municipal water system at Town Meeting and the select board brought that project back for a revote in June. It failed, but residents petitioned for a revote on that vote, which was held in November and the project passed.
Town Administrator Valerie Capels told those present that after the septic project was voted down, all spending on it stopped. She said that the select board created a task force to find out from residents why the project failed and said those reason varied from cost (impact on tax rate) to concerns about growth.
USERS ONLY
She said that in 2012 the town would have to start paying back a $700,000 state loan that had been used for engineering the wastewater project (it is 50 percent through engineering by Phelps Engineering). Had the project passed, those engineering costs would not be borne by all taxpayers, but rather by users only.
Planning commissioner Robin Morris asked about the status of the town's TIF district application and Capels said it had not progressed since the March Town Meeting article failed.
"The town's Growth Center application is done. But that relied on water and sewer passing. We could still submit it and seek conditional approval, showing that the critical infrastructure is planned to begin within five years," Capels said, noting that the select board had included the sewer project in the town's capital budget in 2012 or 2013.
"What is the town losing without the TIF district?" Morris asked.
"Real opportunities for revenue to fund this type of infrastructure. At least $2 million over the next 20 years," Capels said.
GO FORWARD?
"Are we ready to go forward with the septic if we could actually find the money?" Morris asked.
"I think we have to do the outreach to the community and educate people. I think people had questions about this project last time and did not get them answered. If we don't answer the questions, we should not expect a different outcome," said planning commissioner Russ Bennett.
"I happened to be at the State House this week and there are communities putting forth projects for consideration should any funding become available. There is a bubble of money coming down the pike and it behooves us to get to the trough. Our septic project could and would create jobs, more jobs than some of the other projects. The password is 'shovel ready,'" Bennett said.
"What would it take for planning on the septic project to move forward?" asked Morris.
"Public input. People need to let the select board know that they are interested," said Capels.
EIGHTY PERCENT
"The planning commission can use small money to do the outreach and capacity testing and get interpretations on the rules about pipe separation distances; maybe there's some other planning grant we could get," Bennett suggested. He asked select board chair Charlie Hosford how much of the almost $12 million cost of the entire project would be required in grants so that it had no impact on taxpayers who did not hook up to the system.
"It would take 80 percent in grants to have no impact on taxpayers. We were far from there," Hosford said.
"Townspeople outside the area have to be convinced that it's in their best interest as well. That's part of the sales job of the planning commission. We have to address the cost issues and show that by doing this project we are able, with a TIF district, to fund it," said planning commission chair Steve Shea.
"People are motivated by 'what's in it for me?' A graph showing what it is really going to cost me would help. I remember reading that it would cost me $50 more a year in taxes. Waitsfield is worth that to me. We need to make that clearer," said planning commission member Ted Tremper.
WE ARE PLANNERS
"We shouldn't be using our prime ag land to build houses on. We are planners, looking out 20 years from now. We've got to get ready for gas to go back up and I'm concerned that we don't have a plan. We had a scare last year when gas went to $4 and people said they could not afford to drive here to work. People are going to want to live in the communities where they work in the future and we need to put that infrastructure in place," Morris said.
"I don't think we did a very good job of explaining this the first time around. I think you've got to remove the 1.5 or 3 cents on people's taxes first. We don't have a cohesive plan for the town of Waitsfield going forward without sewage. I'm not comfortable with us waiting until 2012 to bring that back up," he added.
"Of the hundreds of houses that have been built in Waitsfield in the past 20 to 30 years, most have been in the open land and hills. Development has not taken place in the village because the infrastructure is not there to support. There is land but no infrastructure. As a result, we're sprawling up the entire town and not giving people the ability to walk to school or the post office," Bennett said.
ESTABLISH SUSTAINABILITY
"We need to establish some sustainability within our community," Hosford concurred.
Planners discussed whether costs to taxpayers at large could be reduced by increasing fees for users and also discussed whether the town should pre-allocate some or all of the capacity for specific uses rather than let it be used on a first come, first served basis.
Planner Sharon Stone, working with the commission on the Town Plan update, said that she had reviewed the existing plan and found that wastewater was mentioned in every chapter and that it was cited as critical to protect groundwater, critical to providing affordable housing, critical for protecting the town's historical settlement pattern, critical for managing development, critical for sustainable growth in Irasville with higher density and mixed uses, and critical for energy efficiency.
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