The Carroll City Council has provided direction to city staff on developing a plan for a voluntary annexation and potential expansion of sanitary sewer services east of the city limits along U.S. Highway 30. City Manager, Mike Pogge-Weaver, says James and Amanda Rezac submitted a proposal.
Currently, the sanitary sewer service extends only to the northwest corner of the Pella Corp. site. Pogge-Weaver says there are several options available.
In a broader scope, to run the infrastructure to serve the entire watershed on that side of town, estimated at about 150 acres, it would cost around $900,000. Pogge-Weaver says the council is being asked to address both the annexation and a plan for the sewer extension at the same time as the annexation is required for offering of the service, per city codes.
In recent years, the city has followed codes to develop a connection fee structure to recoup the costs of expansion.
The cost for connection fees in that Burgess district in 2015 was at about $.05 per square foot. Pogge-Weaver says the sewer system is treated as an enterprise and it cash flows itself without the support from general tax dollars. Utility funds would initially be used to cover the cost of the extension. Council members indicated they wanted to be consistent in their dealings with these requests and gave staff direction to further investigate a plan for the annexation of the Rezac property and services run to it and a potential fee district that would make the sewer available to future development while creating uniform boundaries. The findings from this work will be brought back for discussion at a future meeting.
