- November 17, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
Palm Coast doesn’t want to have to tell a developer who wants to build a subdivision in the city that it can’t do so. But that might happen over the next few years if the state doesn’t expand the city’s wastewater capacity, because the city would likely exceed its capacity and the state would impose a growth moratorium.
So the Palm Coast City Council voted unanimously March 3 to take out a $31 million State Revolving Fund loan to cover the estimated $30 million construction cost of a new plant. The loan would let the city build the plant without raising its water rates.
“If you didn’t build this facility, at a minimum, if you had a steady growth rate or a big development like Hidden Lakes, if you don’t have the capacity at the time they start construction, you can build your infrastructure but you’re not going to be able to build anything else,” Wastewater Operation Manager Danny Ashburn said. “There are certain rules and regulations you have to follow for the Department of Environmental Protection. You either have to have a plan in place to add on to (the current) facility, or build a new facility. You have to have room for future growth.”
The city would have to pay off the loan, offered with an interest rate of 0.83%, at a rate of about $1.69 million per year for 20 years, according to data presented at a Feb. 24 City Council workshop.
Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts said that financing the project through a loan would allow the people using the plant to be the ones paying for it. “If by some miracle we had all cash to pay for this, that means that current and previous residents would have picked up the full burden, and the future growth would not participate,” he said.
Councilman Steven Nobile questioned the wisdom of taking out such a large loan, which would bring the city’s total debt load to about $200 million. “When it comes to debt, I understand the concept, but there’s got to be a point where it’s going to start troubling us,” he said.
There has been steady growth to the county’s north, Ashburn said, and it tends to wend its way south. “If you go up into St. Johns County, there’s so many subdivisions being built you wouldn’t believe it, and that growth tends to work south.”
The new plant would have a capacity of two million gallons per day. The current plant has a capacity of 6.83 million gallons per day. If the new plant is built, it would service the northwestern part of the city and make reuse water accessible in areas that do not currently have it, reducing the amount of potable water needed for irrigation, Ashburn said.
