Flat Rates Voted In For Massena Sewer Building
MASSENA - Village residents needing to build a new sewer or water connection to their home will now likely pay much less for it.
The village's Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a series of flat rates for the construction of lateral water and sewer lines.
The village will now charge $500 if the water or sewer connection is on the same side of the road as the building, $750 if the connection is in the middle of the road and $1,000 if the connection is on the opposite side of the road.
The new flat rates are only for a standard residential three-quarter inch lateral water line and a four-inch lateral sewer line. Any business or home needing a larger line installed will have to pay the additional costs for those materials on top of the flat fee, Trustee Joseph A. Macaulay said.
The village looked into changing the old system after receiving several complaints about the "exorbitant" cost it charged to install a connection or replacement, Trustee Francis J. Carvel said.
The village had been charging "time and materials" or for every piece of equipment and employee that was on site, as well as every material used, cost of labor, and material to back fill the road, Mr. Carvel said.
Village code required the homeowner to pay for the full cost of installing a lateral before the board changed the code Tuesday night. The total cost to homeowners for such a project came to $5,000 to $6,000, Mr. Carvel said. But he said after checking around the county, the same project only cost $130 in Governour, $1,500 in Potsdam and approximately $500 to $800 in Ogdensburg.
The flat rate will be better for the public than the prior payment system, which gave no approximation, he said.
"It could be $200. It could be $10,000," Mr. Carvel said. "This way here it's a set charge, it's a fair charge, it will cover the cost, and it's something that the people know what it is. So when you go there, there's no surprises at the end."
Village officials will be meeting with some of those who already paid under the old rates to discuss possible forms of assistance, Mr. Macaulay said. The village budget will not take a big hit financially from the new rates, Mr. Macaulay said, because the employees installing the water and sewer connections are already paid for with village taxes.
"Basically, we were recovering the cost for what people were already paying for," he said. "Our thought is, why are we charging people for something they're paying for in their taxes?"
Department of Public Works Superintendent Hassan A. Fayad said the cheaper fees will likely mean more residents will be interested in getting the project done, which means a heavier workload for his employees and a tighter strain on the operations budget.
"I don't believe it will be catastrphoically detrimental to the budget, but it will have an impact," he said.
According to the New York Conference of Mayors, an advocacy group for cities and villages, taxpayer money only covers main water and sewer lines and not lateral lines, Mr. Fayad said.
"If the board elects not to pursue that, that's totally up to them," Mr. Fayad said.
At a February meeting, Mr. Fayad said the installations required substantial work.
"We have to excavate, cut the asphalt out of the road, dig down to where the lines go, then backfill, patch the street, repair the curbs and sidewalks," Mr. Fayad said.
Such work could not be done by a private contractor, Mr. Fayad said then, because village codes prohibit contractors from doing work that involves tearing up village roadways.
"We don't allow any contractor to dig in our roads," he said. "The reason being, in the past, contractors who did dig in our roads, when they put it back, they would not do it properly. You would get depressions in the road that made it like a washboard. We don't allow that anymore."
