correspondence, etc regarding sewer

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To: Street File, 701 Dickey Lake Drive From: Mike Gaffron, Asst. City Administrator Date: September 7, 2007 Subject: Sewer & Water Status for 701 Dickey Lake Drive and the remainder of Dickey Lake Drive In August 2004 the City received a request from Patrick Pugh, the property owner of the vacant lot at 701 Dickey Lake Drive, requesting approval to connect a proposed new home to the existing municipal sewer system in Willow Drive. The request was accompanied by a letter from Rusty Olson's Soil and Perc Testing indicating that for this specific site, seasonally saturated soils occur too near the surface for standard septic systems to be allowed. For new homes, the City code requires two sites per lot capable of a standard system. Public Works Director Greg Gappa in September 2004 indicated to the City Council that a City sewer extension to serve just this residence would have to be a gravity system extending from the west side of Willow Drive to the easterly boundary of the lot, within the right-of-way of Dickey Lake Drive. While this would have the ability to be extended eastward to serve other lots on Dickey Lake Drive, the estimated cost to serve just this property was $61,000. Gappa recommended that the provision of sewer service to 701 Dickey Lake Drive be approved contingent on the property owner being assessed the entire cost of the extension, subject to signing a waiver of any rights to appeal the assessment. While the Council voted 4-0 to allow the connection per Gappa's recommendations, the project did not proceed. In 2006 the issue of providing sewer and water to serve this property again surfaced. The City Engineer in June 2006 provided a cost estimate for providing sewer to the Dickey Lake Drive neighborhood, which consists of 14 homes. The estimate for Gravity Sanitary Sewer was $318,000. As an alternative, it was estimated that a Pressure Sewer System, with each residence installing and maintaining its own pumping system, would cost $98,000 not including the typical $7-10,000 individual property cost of making the pressurized connection. Adding municipal water mains to the mix was estimated at an additional $128,000. In August 2006 a request for a permit to make a direct connection to the Willow Drive sewer system for 701 Dickey Lake Drive was denied on the basis that the City will not allow further individual connections of Dickey Lake Drive properties to the existing Willow Drive sewer, but that all new connections will have to be to a neighborhood lateral system yet to be constructed. As of September, 2007 the City has had no further formal discussions regarding sewer & water for Dickey Lake Drive. There has been no neighborhood petition for such service, and the City is unlikely to further consider such service until such time that there is broad neighborhood support and a willingness to pay the costs of installation of such service.