Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Town council clarifies sewer capacity policy for developers
Developer Jeanne Stosser found out Tuesday that town policy will limit the number of houses at Echols Village, at least for now.
She got more disappointing news Tuesday when she found out that the town's sewer offset policy would limit another development she's working on, at least in the short term. "They want to take away lots from Echols Village," Stosser said before Tuesday's council work session.
Stosser got council approval in November to build about 60 houses on the site of the old Echols Mobile Home Park. But the sewer capacity issues that helped kill Northside will also limit the number of houses she can build on that property.
Since last year, the town has required that developers who want to hook into the North End sewer find ways to compensate for the amount of sewer they will eventually pump into the system.
There are several ways to accomplish this, from making storm water improvements to building alternative systems to finding and reporting leaky manhole covers and old roof drains hooked into the sewer system. Developers can then draw on this extra capacity to hook up homes and businesses to the sewer.
Stosser's engineers have been combing Blacksburg for inflow problems to report to the town to make room in the system for Echols Village houses.
But not everything they've found will count toward sewer capacity, Planning and Engineering Director Adele Schirmer said Tuesday.
The town doesn't want developers approaching homeowners about drain spouts hooked to the sewer system, she said, so those won't count.
"Right now we're not doing enforcement on single-family homeowners. We plan to educate the homeowners" and provide incentives for them to unhook their roof drains, she said.
"That means the time we spent in the field looking for problems has been wasted," Stosser's engineer Sheldon Bower said Tuesday.
Stosser also thought she'd be allowed to hook up 40 Echols Village houses to the sewer because the old trailer park had 40 lots.
But council decided Tuesday that developers who buy old properties will get sewer credits based only on the property's sewer use since Feb. 1, 2003. That means Stosser can only hook up 35 houses.
Adding to her frustration, 12 other units she had hoped to build soon on the old Givens family farm in the North End are on hold until she can satisfy the offset policy.
"It's important to remember that this is a temporary policy," Schirmer said.
Planned upgrades to a sewer line on Webb Street will relieve capacity issues for all north end developments, she said. Construction on the upgrade is tentatively scheduled for this fall.
