Bedminster to hold the line on taxes
Bedminster’s proposed 2013 budget isn’t quite completed yet, but it will probably look a lot like this year’s.
“There’ll be no tax increase,” Jack Terry, township manager, said following the Nov. 14 Bedminster Township Board of Supervisors meeting.
A special meeting will be held at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 30, to unveil the preliminary budget, he said. The fiQDO vRWH RQ WKH EXGJHW wLOO EH LQ December.
With a property tax rate of 7.5 mills, the owner of a Bedminster home assessed at $35,000 pays $262.50 in township property taxes. Each mill equals $1 of taxes per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Bedminster’s total general fund budget for this year puts income and spending at a little more than $2 million.
Four of the mills are allocated for the general fund, with 2.5 mills designated for open space and 1 mill for WKH fiUH WDx.
In other matters at the Nov. 14 meeting:
• 7KH ERDUG DSSURvHG DQ DPHQGment to the grading ordinance requiring that storm-water management plans be submitted along with the grading plans when additions to the impervious surface are made on properties of one acre or less.
The change is being made because there have been cases in which additions made to some homes in a
development used up all of the amount of impervious surface allowed, leaving other homeowners unable to add on, John Rice, township solicitor, said.
Bedminster’s not the only place the issue has arisen, he said.
“This has happened on these small lots all over Bucks County,” Rice said.
The
new
measure “spreads out the available impervious surface so it’s not all used up by WKH fiUVW 50 SHUFHnW RI WKH homeowners,” Rice said. “We’re going to manage it so everybody has a chance to do improvements on their lots.”
The new rules will also produce better storm-water management systems on the lots, he said.
• 3ROLFH CKLHI 0DUN Ofner said there were 15 road closures on 12 roads in Bedminster when the remnants of Hurricane Sandy hit on Monday into Tuesday, Oct. 29 and 30.
“By Wednesday morning xOct. 31], our roads were open and passable again, with the exception of two places,” he said.
Township workers did a good job of dealing with the storm even though hurricanes aren’t expected in this area, board Chairman Morgan Cowperthwaite said.
“vou plan for a plane crash or something that’s VLWH VSHFLfiF,” CRZSHUWKwaite said. “This was all over.”
As happened elsewhere, Bedminster ran out of “road closed” signs during the storm, Ofner said.
“The only issue we had was the people that didn’t realize the barrel in the middle of the road meant the road was closed,” Ofner said.