Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

From the latest SE Messenger:

''Council approved an ordinance that will allow an agreement with Fairfield County and Virginia Homes for the provision of water and wastewater services. Under the agreement, the county will service certain lines at the cost agreed to in the pre-annexation agreement. The legislation passed by a vote of 5-2, with Wright and Sabatino dissenting.''

If my memory serves me correctly, this would be for the Wellington Park development, correct? Didn't Pickerington's pre-annexation agreement call for free/reduced water & sewer tap-in fees for Virginia Homes? Why is our county now subsidizing development within PLSD boundaries by giving Virginia Homes free/reduced water and sewer tap-ins? Kerry Hogan the director of county water & sewer was involved in the rezoning of this property. He and Bill Yapel insisted that we (a group of opponents) agree to ridiculous densities so the land would stay in Violet Township. I think the original Virginia Homes PUD called for about 370 homes on 143 acres. The development looked absolutely ridiculous and the green space offered was useless. After negotiations the PUD was reduced to about 245 homes and bunch condos. This was still too high in my opinion and we should have held out for more. However, with our township and county insisting that this PUD will keep the property in VT, we reluctantly agreed to it.
Well, guess what? The city annexed anyway and gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Virginai Home who, by the way, laughed all the way to the bank. And this was after Randy Hughes, Bill Wright, John Washington and the rest of the ?“crew?” voted to NOT annex the property into the city. I remember Ted Hackworth telling me after the vote that this was a non-binding motion and not a ''victory'' at all. The point I'm trying to make here is Virginia Homes is now taking county money (Violet township taxpayer money), to plop hundreds of homes in our school district -- a district already bursting at the seams. We're paying dearly for this crummy development via school taxes and now we're subsedizing Virginia Home's water/sewer tap-in fees. If you or I were to build a new home in the county do you think Kerry Hogan would give us free/reduced sewer & water tap-ins? Does anyone know what was negotiated in the pre-annexation agreement?

It's no wonder we can't pass a local school levy, our county officials are eating our lunch!



By johnb

Hogan Gone

John,

Kerry Hogan has quit as the County sanitary engineer, the new person is Don Rector, who was his assistant.

If in fact the county is allowing Virginia to tap in with fee waivers, this is a big no no in my book. Our county sewer system has been self supporting because of tap fees which allows the burden to be placed where it belongs to new taps to support the capital investment.

The city has a sewer main stub on this property that was a point of contention when it was built. The County was supposedly willing to sue to service this land since they invested more than one million dollars for the lift station at Chevington Village and associated lines to serve all the way out to the new High School Complex. With the city conserving sewer capacity to make the current plant last longer,even with the new permit, I do believe they do not need this flow, even if it is gravity flow, as they can use the capacity this would take elsewhere. Why the county agreed to this deserves investigation.

Please consider

Can't this be looked upon as a step in the right direction? Can't we look upon this as a possible first step in cooperation between the township, county and the city? Sure it's lemons to you but let's make some lemonade.

The county (of which I am a taxpayer) invested a lot of money in laying these water and sewer lines. I am happy to see that more of that investement will pay off. he city (of which I am a taxpayer) really pi$$ed me off when they laid duplicate lines or guaranteed they would.

Thanks new council for making the attempt to 1. protect some of the investment of my tax dollars to the county and 2. to not over burden and thus compel the city to unnecessarily expand water and sewer plants and suffer the building boom that would be required to pay for it.

Lisa, I know you know much more than me on this subject, so can you explain to the readers the ramifications of the OEPA's first EVER allowance of an NPDES increase from 1.2 to 1.6 million gallons for the city of Pickerington and how important the decision last year by at least two members of service committee to NOT expand the sewer plant was? What do you feel the long term benefits are to the city thank to their decision? I just don't feel the media can do justice to the importance of this.

Thanks,
Loyal reader

Viginia Homes Pre-Annexation

For annexing to the City of Pickerington, Virginia Homes (46 Acres known as Wellington Park) was given by the city a reduction in sewer and water tap fees. Fee would be $1900 for water and $2460 for sewer, with the City providing those services. Zoning would be the same as in twp.with the same number of houses/condos. City would extend Courtright Road to Virginia Homes line. This is from the pre-annexation agreement.