Sewer and Bonds--101

Reader Tim Latta asked a question about the sewer and water bonds that we sold for $3 million a few years ago. To set the stage I need to talk about the bigger picture for a bit. Round Lake developed a comprehensive plan that visualizes its natural borders as Fish Lake Road to the West, and Chardon Road to the South. This comprehensive plan was completed and adopted in late 1999 and early 2000 and had some clear ideas of what the vast majority of the land West of Fairfield and South of 120 would be (we call this our Southwest Quadrant by the way). The land use was primarily commercial and industrial with some residential in the mix as well.

Over time the village has consistently moved forward with this plan. However since 90% of the land in the SW Quadrant is not annexed to any municipality its fair game to any village or the County for development of any kind. I have told you what Round Lake intends to do in the area. But there is another player in the area, Volo, Volo's comprehensive plan involves commercial and industrial development along the Route 12 corridor, and homes starting at Gilmer and 120 going east to almost Fairfield Road. If I were the Mayor of Volo, I would pursue this path as logical for the goals of Volo by the way. I believe that Volo, building homes, in the area we have planned for commercial and industrial development in the SW Quadrant would be counter to Round Lake's future best interest. The other player is Lake County, they are not to be trusted, but they have not shown signs of doing residential development in the last few years out here since the Tanneron Bay and Brooks Farm development.

A major key to development is bringing sewer and water to a parcel. Because if you want to build homes or industrial parks and or office parks you need sewer and water. Septic fields are not the greatest of either of the these for development purposes. So over the last three to four years Volo and Round Lake have been attempting to bring sewer and water to this area so each village can execute its comprehensive plan. The Ryland parcel which was just approved by the village board allows us to get our sewer and water to the SW Quadrant at last.

The village board recognized how important this project was to the long term future of the village and was willing to spend money to do it. Bringing sewer and water from behind the housing behind the CVS at Fairfield and 134 was what $2.5 million of the bonding was for. The project runs south from behind the homes along the right of way for Com Ed, until it crosses Nippersink where it takes a short turn westwards to line up with Dawn Marie. It then proceeds south along the street until it reached a vacant parcel of land we own, and at that time, was the end of Round Lake's corporate boundaries. As Ryland came on board we were able to get them to shoulder the additional cost of bringing the sewer and water the rest of the way to 120 and Wilson. In addtion to funding the connection to the sewer line for the residents of Dawn Marie. All this is a long set-up to answer the question.

This sewer connection has a service area, which bascially covers the SW Quadrant service zone mentioned above. This service area contains a maximum amount of capacity, in other words how much sewage can flow through the pipe. So what is done to ensure that the capacity is not used up is that there is an engineering calculation done that allocates sewer throughout the entire sewer service area. Since the village paid for the sewer to come to the area it should and will get paid for the costs of building the sewer this form of payment is called "recapture". So the $2.5 million we spent to bring sewer to the SW Quadrant will eventually be returned to the village in the form of this recapture. As a parcel gets developed and hooks on to the sewer line, they repay the village the recapture fee which is calculated by a complex formula designed to "recapture" the village investment. This sewer protection zone also has official legal protection via the Lakes Region Sanitary Sewer District (the relevant sewer district in that area) so even if there is development in the area that occurs in Volo or in the unincorporated areas of the county that attaches to our sewer, the village gets paid recapture.

Alert readers will notice that we used $2.5 million of the $3 million for this project. The other $500,000 of the bonding was used to improve and upgrade from an 8" to a 16" line the main north south sewer line that runs down to Madrona and Lakewood homes, but is in the older part of the village along Cedar Lake Road and Goodnow.

Over time, and a municipality can afford to take the long view, the bonding money will come back to the village, and with the renewed push for the 120 bypass, and the increased interest from the parcel owners inside the SW quadrant to do something, I believe the payoff will be quick for the village.