HILLSBOROUGH: Sewer project to go forward, at reduced cost

Township may absord some of road repaving costs in its budget

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Sanitary sewer service to 40 homes in the southwest section of the township was given the Township Committee’s OK Tuesday night.
   The governing body took the formal step of requesting the township Municipal Utilities Authority to build the estimated $1.2 million system in the 30-year-old developed area of Camden Road, Winding Way, Spring Valley Drive and Euclid Avenue.
   The governing body went into executive session to discuss details, including how much it would be willing to spend from the township treasury to repave roads after the system is built.
   Without the township picking up a portion of repaving costs, residents could face an expense as high as $30,000-$35,000 over 20 years. The Township Committee is trying to meet residents’ requests to bring that figure down to about $25,000, about what Claremont area homeowners paid for a project completed in 2011.
   Costs are estimated at $848,637 to install the sanitary sewer system, and a projected $386,279 to mill and repave the streets.
   ”We’re delighted the residents will get service they so desperately need,” said Glen Belnay, the health department administrator.
   He scurried in the fall to convince at least 70 percent of the homeowners to agree to join the project. This week, he said he expected at least 30 of the 39 homeowners would agree, if the final cost could be brought down to about $25,000.
   Residents have been given information that estimates costs of $9,000 to $14,000 to connect a home to a sewer line at the street, plus 20 years of payments for money that will be borrowed.
   Replacements of septic systems in areas like this, which has a high water table, would probably be as high $40,000-50,000, Dr. Belnay has said.
   Dr. Belnay has said it would take at least through mid-2014 to design, bid and award the contract, and eight months or more to build. Homeowners would then have a maximum of six months to connect, he said.
   After the project is designed and bid, the actual costs would be presented again to the homeowners. If the costs are more than 20 percent higher than presented, contracts from 60 percent of homeowners would be needed to be signed again.
   The project affects four homes on Willow Road, 11 on Winding Way, six on Spring Valley Drive, 11 on Camden Road and seven on Euclid Avenue.
   A resident of the area asked the Township Committee at its Dec. 10 meeting to consider bearing some of the expense of street paving — which is more than 30 percent of the total project — as a township improvement, thus moving part of the cost from few affected residents to the wider township budget.
   Township Administrator Anthony Ferrara said then that the Township Committee wanted to try to bring the cost nearer to the $24,200, plus interest, that 191 homeowners in the Claremont area, near the Millstone River, paid for sewer service. First connections were made to the system in December 2011.