By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
HOWARD – Now that the village’s Special Assessment Review Committee has completed its work, some changes are being implemented.
The Howard village board agreed Monday, Nov. 12, to amend its policy for determining special assessments with four changes recommended by the committee.
Mike Kaster, village director of engineering, described the changes backed by all four committee members – Village President Burt McIntyre and trustees Craig McAllister, Adam Lemorande and Ray Suennen – and the four changes were approved by the board without opposition.
Kaster noted two of the changes involve property owners in the village being eligible to receive credits for septic systems and potable wells if they have been installed within the last five years of when those property owners would be assessed for municipal sewer and water service.
Based on policy in Suamico, Kaster pointed out the changes would make those properties eligible for credits based on a five-year depreciation schedule, in which the amount of the credit would be reduced by 20 percent each year.
“If you had an existing rural home, and you put in a brand new well and septic (system) within the last five years and then a project comes through from the village of Howard that runs municipal sewer and water past your frontage, and then by ordinance requires you to connect, if your system is less than five years old and you have proof of that… then you would get credit for those newer systems – 20 percent per year based on the age,” he said. “So if you have a three-year-old system, you’d have two years of credit that would be owed to you, or 40 percent of the cost of that system would be credited to your assessments.”
In cases where new development, adjacent to an existing single-family lot with an existing home, results in constructing a new roadway that forms a corner lot, Kaster said the fronting property owners and the village would each now contribute 50 percent of the standard street size project cost for the street frontage for parcels that are non-dividable, based on the minimum R-1 lot size.
He said this cost sharing is intended to lessen the burden of special assessments on existing properties that become a corner lot because of a new street intersection.
Kaster said a new section about regional storm water management fees inserted into the special assessment policy puts into place a practice village staff has been introducing in final resolutions for fees related to regional storm water management facilities.
“A regional storm water pond can serve more than one property, so rather than charging that to one property, you create a district or service area,” he said. “So let’s just say, for example, a pond serves 100 acres, and it costs $100,000 to build, then each acre that ties into that regional storm water pond would be charged on its per-acre fee of $1,000 in this case. Every project that comes online in that regional storm water system that would be established would be paying that established rate for that particular pond.”
Kaster also noted existing parcels fully developed would be exempt from those fees.
The special assessment policy amendments, Kaster said, did not include a recommendation committee members split 2-2 on related to deferring a portion of special assessments over $10,000.
In cases the special assessment to a property owner would exceed $15,000, Suennen and McAllister favored allowing the property owner to defer the assessment amount over $10,000 at 0 percent interest until the property is sold, split or transferred to someone other than the owner’s spouse. McIntyre and Lemorande voted against that amendment.
The committee, which is disbanding after board action to amend the village’s special assessment policy, was created by the village board in April when a residential property owner, George Hoell, objected to more than $20,000 worth of special assessments being charged for his corner lot next to where 32 single-family residential lots were planned as part of the Kozy Korners development.
Hoell said there would be no benefit for him to have to connect to the municipal water and sewer service with his lot at Evergreen Avenue and Coral Reef Lane.
Though board members approved those assessments, they agreed to form the committee to review the special assessment policy, and if the policy favored Hoell, a credit would be issued to him.
McIntyre said Hoell could be eligible for a credit related to having a corner lot.