Sewer hookup fees waived
As the result of a split vote by the township commissioners, 33 residents of the Regal Oaks subdivision will enjoy a benefit no other customers of the township’s sewer system have ever received.
The board voted 3-2 at its Jan. 22 meeting to waive two fees — a nonrefundable $50 application fee and a $79 engineering inspection fee — for those who will be hooked up to the system.
That will result in about $5,000 in fees that will have to be made up either by sewer customers or the township’s general fund.
The vote was specific to a $450,000 sewer expansion project the commissioners approved last October to connect 33 of the remaining 75 unconnected homes in the Regal Oaks area that need to be connected.
Upper Pottsgrove received a $200,000 grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority through the Small Water and Sewer Grant Program to help cover some of the cost.
As is often the case with such public systems, the township ordinance gives the homeowners no choice about being hooked up. And it’s not cheap. Getting hooked up to the sewer system also carries a one-time $5,447 tap-in fee to the township, in addition to paying a plumber to run a line from the curb to their house.
Once connected, they will also begin paying the $215 quarterly payment made by all others connected to the sewer system.
The tap-in fees will be used to replenish the township’s sewer capital fund by $136,000. The capital fund is being nearly drained to cover the portion of the project not covered by the state grant.
Although he made no motion to waive the tap-in fee, commissioners’ Vice Chairman France Krazalkovich does think the application and engineering inspection fee should be waived, and made a motion to that effect.
“I understand we’re being mandated to do this project, but we’re not mandated to charge them ridiculous fees,” Krazalkovich said.
Newly appointed Township Manager Michelle Reddick pointed out the township has never waived those fees before and warned that doing so now
might set a precedent as more homes are connected to the system in the future.
“This is a half-million project to benefit 33 homes and those people could never afford to finance this project by themselves. It is being financed by all the other sewer customers, who did pay fee,” said Commissioner Elwood Taylor.
“I don’t think $50 is a lot to ask for a half million capital project,” Taylor said.
“If you want to talk about waiving all fees, that’s a conversation I’m willing to have,” said commissioners’ Chairman Trace Slinkerd. “But we can’t just single out one group of people and have them pay something different than everyone else.”
Audience member Keith Kehl agreed.
“That’s not fair,” he said. “Everyone else had to pay to hook up to the system. It’s not fair to waive the fee for just some people. We should get a refund.”
Krazalkovich was joined in his motion by commissioners Renee Spaide and Martin Schreiber, who lives in the Regal Oaks subdivision but was previously hooked up to the sewer system.
Taylor and Slinkerd voted no.
Long an area with sewer
problems — from failing septic systems to an aging “package sewer plant” that emptied into Sprogel’s Run and failed — the township has been pushing steadily forward to comply with a state mandate to connect homes in the Regal Oaks sub-division to the larger sewer system.
That system ultimately carries the sewage to the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant and then empties into the Schuylkill River.