09-04-2003 Council Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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Crystal Bay Road, Willow Drive, Brown Road North, North Ferndale Road, McCulley Road, Watertown Road, and Fox Street. The City receives about $400,00 per year in construction funds for use on State Aid streets. These funds are generated front state gas ta.xes. Statewide, there is increasing concern the current level of State Aid funding is inadequate. Historically, Orono’s concern with the use of state aid funding has been the requirement that roads need to be widened to meet State Aid standards in order to be eligible to use State Aid. funds. The use of State Aid funding would be very difllcult on Fox Street and Watertown Road because of the number of trees and wetlands along these roads. Over the next several years, our State Aid funding can be used on wider roads such as Willow Drive, Old Crystal Bay Road, and McCulley Roads. However, this leaves the issue of funding projects on Watertown Road and Fox Street unresolved. There are several areas of Watertown Road that are showing signs of pavement failure,which needs to be addressed. Local Streets and Funding We have about fifty miles of City streets that are not eligible for state aid funding. Most of them are narrow, lower traffic streets. Many are dead end streets. The biggest issue with these narrow, dead end streets is the lack of an adequate cul dc sac, and in numerous situations private driveways arc used as a turnaround space. There arc several potential sources of funding for projects on these streets. These include tax levies, special assessments, and possible stormwater utility funding for stormwater improvements on these streets. Tax le%7 funding can be either pay as you go for projects, or bonding for projects. Levies for debt service are outside of the levy limits. The use of special assessments is difficult because of the ikcu to demonstrate a benefn to the property that equals the assessment. The use of assessments in Orono is complicated by the relatively lower density of development in the City. Based on a feasibility study that was completed several years ago for Rest Point Road and assessment policies in other cities, for planning purposes we are recommending assuming a maximum assessment of 1/3 of the project costs. Statewide, the number of assessment appeals for street projects has been increasing over the past several years. The cities that have had the most success prevailing in assessment appeal cases have before and after appraisals for property values completed. The city ’s stormwater utility funding is limited and using these funds for street reconstruction reduces the amount of funds available for other stormwater projects. For planning purposes, we are recommending funding 20% of project costs from the stormwater utility funds. In summaiy , the percentage of project costs that could possibly be obtained from special assessments and stormwater utility funds is approximately 50% of the project costs. This means that the other 50% of project costs will need to be funded with tax levy funds. Over the past several years, the tax levy in the PIR Fund and the Contracted Street Maintenance budget line item has been about SI 30,000/year which is a substantial increase from the $40,000/year the City had been budgeting for street improvement projects for many years. With these additional funds many streets have been overlain and a marked improvement in the quality of the City's ’s streets has occurred.