OKs bonding
for Route 9 plan
Sewer project
takes step ahead
Howell council
OKs bonding
for Route 9 plan
By kathy baratta
Staff Writer
Following a lengthy public hearing that ran until after midnight Monday, the Howell mayor and Township Council voted 4-1 to bond $4.2 million to pay for sewer installations along Route 9 from Lanes Mill Road to the Lakewood border.
Councilwoman Cynthia Scho-maker was the only council member to vote against the bonding ordinance.
"I think we’re rushing into something we haven’t thought out," she said.
Last summer, a majority of property owners included in the special assessment area voted in favor of having sewer lines installed along Route 9 from Lanes Mill Road to the Lakewood border.
Proponents of the sewer initiative have said the development of commercial ratables along this corridor will help to ease the property tax burden now being shouldered by Howell’s residential taxpayers.
George Krebs, speaking for the Howell Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber is enthusiastically in favor of the sewer lines.
Krebs told the governing body, "There are really only two thoroughfares in this town with any promise of commercial develop-ment — Route 9 and Route 33. The large southern section of Route 9 is a blight and an eyesore that’s good for nothing without sewers."
Art Stanton, who owns Certified Auto Mall on the north side of Route 9, said he wants the sewers because his septic system, along with other business owners’ septic systems in the area, present a threat of groundwater pollution of the northern branch of the Metedeconk River as well as immediate health concerns.
"When me and my employees wash our hands, I want to see the water go down the drain. I want my toilets to flush," Stanton said.
Those opposed to the project say the installation of sewers on both sides of Route 9 will open the area to residential development.
Jay Migliaccio, one of the founders of the citizens group Residents Against Irresponsible Development (RAID), told the mayor and council, "I understand the need to develop Route 9 and get ratables, but the potential is there for a lot of damage that won’t be mitigated by the business that will be brought in."
Gravity lines will not be installed; instead, forced mains will be installed because they are cost-prohibitive for a developer, according to Township Manager Bruce Davis.
The proposed sewer project will run 8-inch-wide pipe from Lanes Mill Road and Route 9 south to the Lakewood border and then east to an Ocean County Utilities Authority hookup at Oak Glen Road.
The commercial property owners who will hook into the new sewer lines will pay a special assessment to Howell of $14,000 per developable acre over a 10-year period to pay off the cost of the $4.2 million bond, according to Chief Finance Officer Jeffrey Filiatreault.
Before the vote late Monday, the members of the governing body heard from some residential property owners who had been lumped into the special assessment area even though their property does not front on Route 9.
To rectify the problems of those individuals the mayor and council members followed the bond approval vote with a unanimously approved motion to remove six individual residential lots from having to pay the special sewer assessment in the Highway Development zone.
These property owners will be contacted to confirm that all six want to be removed from the sewer hookup. Councilman Joseph DiBella said the township planner will then be given the task of evaluating the possibility of rezoning the excluded lots. Also, deed restrictions will be placed on the removed properties that will prevent them from being sold and added to contiguous properties that front Route 9 and could be developed.