Newberry City Commission discusses road maintenance assessments, wastewater plant expansion, and developer fees

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

NEWBERRY, Fla. – At their December 9 Regular Meeting, the Newberry City Commission discussed road maintenance assessments and ways to fund a soon-to-be-needed larger wastewater plant, topics that will be discussed with the public at an upcoming December 16 workshop. They approved the primary plat for the Country Way South Phase 2 development, and they will be working over the next 90 days to come up with ideas to strengthen their partnership with the Easton Newberry Sports Complex.

Road Maintenance Assessment Program

Assistant City Manager Dallas Lee introduced a presentation about a proposed Road Maintenance Assessment Program. Lee said, “As you may recall, during our budget process over the summer, we discussed a Road Maintenance Assessment Program or Road Maintenance Capital Improvement Program. [It would] be similar to your fire assessment. You could levy every year to help fund road projects throughout the city. At that time, the Commission expressed interest in learning more… So with us tonight, we have Peter Napoli from Stantec, who is going to present to the Commission a high-level overview over how a road maintenance program would work, and we seek direction to see if the Commission would be interested in us taking the next steps.”

Mayor Jordan Marlowe explained, “I just want to make sure that we don’t get confused. We have two road conversations happening. One is a potential for a referendum which would be a capital outlay to chip seal, to pave. That’s a referendum. This is an assessment for long-term maintenance. ‘Once you have it, how do you take care of it after that?’ That kind of thing.”

Peter Napoli said, “I specialize in special assessments, impact fees, utility rates, etc. And I worked for Alachua County. I managed their fire assessment program, and I’ve helped Lake City with their stormwater assessment program. Particularly with road maintenance, I worked for a city down in Southwest Florida, the City of Northport. They have a road maintenance assessment that is very successful for providing funding for ongoing annual road maintenance.”

Napoli said road maintenance funding can be done either through direct billing or though ad valorem property taxes; the collection cost is lower using property taxes. Similar to proposed stormwater assessment fees, a letter of intent would need to be filed by January 1 in order to be able to include the fees in the coming year’s September 15 tax roll, Napoli said.

Napoli laid out some possible fee structures. To generate $250,000 annually, he said, Newberry homeowners would pay a flat rate of $56 per year, and a 5,000-square-foot business would pay $278, based on their square footage. To generate $1,325,000 annually, homeowners would pay $278 and the same business would pay $1,390.

After listening to Napoli further, Marlowe corrected himself and said, “What I’m hearing tonight is this methodology potentially could be used for capital outlay as well as maintenance.”

Napoli said that after passing a resolution and issuing a letter of intent, the City would need to calculate the funds needed, mail notices, and have public hearings before submitting the numbers to the Tax Collector.

Marlowe said they would not be voting on the resolution or issuing a letter of intent by the end of this year. Lee explained that they are looking to do more work on it over the next year if the Commission wants to move forward with hiring Napoli’s firm. Marlowe said everyone can ask more questions at the workshop planned for Monday, December 16.

Wastewater Treatment Facility

City Manager Mike New gave an update on the funding plan to expand the capacity of the Wastewater Treatment Facility, including the use of developer agreements. New explained that development must be limited to 200 new homes annually for the next four years in order to avoid exceeding wastewater capacity, and plats for that many homes have already been approved. New said, “The State of Florida, who is our lender, has said, ‘You have to secure the revenue from developers. We’re not going to allow you to build excess capacity for development without securing that revenue.’” 

New said he has been working with developers to figure out a method for collecting the required revenue. He said the City wants to add a 1.2 mg/d (million gallons/day) treatment facility to meet expected growth; the current facility has about half that capacity. 

Marlowe asked, “We could build an advanced treatment 600,000-gallon facility, and that’s already funded. We could do that. We could start that tomorrow. So the question that we’re talking about now is the other 600,000 that we want to build to handle the growth that is coming, correct?”

New answered, “That’s exactly on point.” New said Newberry has about $13 million on hand for a new wastewater plant, and Archer is planning to contribute over $14 million, for a total of $27.2 million. Referring to the remaining money that will be needed to construct the $88 million plant, New said, “Jamie and Dallas have been furiously trying to figure out, ‘How do we secure that?’ What we’ve come up with, these development agreements, is our best plan. But if we find another way – you know, we have a $49 million grant application out there. If that comes home, that goes a long ways toward securing the remaining outstanding, and it gets to be a much lower bar. But we’re not counting on that.”

New said the cost of the $88 million wastewater plant will be divided among existing Newberry utility customers (25%), Archer residents (15%), and new developments in Newberry (60%). New said, “With this allocation, we currently expect to finish our plant in late 2026 or somewhere in the first half of 2027.” New said they need to amend current developer agreements to reflect payment schedules for reserved wastewater capacity. Once that is done, New said, they will receive State Revolving Fund (SRF) funds and begin construction in Q3 2025. New said developers will have different payment options, ranging from payment in full to annual payments made over 10 years as construction is completed.

Plan requires 200 new homes per year for the next 20 years

Commissioners had some concerns about the need to continue to build 200 homes per year for the next 20 years to be able to afford the wastewater plant. Marlowe said he would be more comfortable with 150 instead of 200. Lee said impact fees on new construction can be raised every four years, and they plan to do that soon. 

Commissioner Rick Coleman asked about building a smaller facility. New said, “There’s a lot of crystal-balling going on. We’re making our best judgments, but Jamie has a ton of experience in this. Our consulting team has a ton of experience in this. We think that 1.2 – and remember, only 1.025 is for Newberry, 0.175 of that goes to Archer. So we’re currently a 600,000 gallon-per-day plant, and we’re expanding to a little over a million gallons per day for Newberry.” Also replying to Coleman, Lee said, “We have applied for every federal funding program we can think of.”

During public comment, developer Tripp Norfleet urged the City to “keep the cost down” for the wastewater plant instead of worrying only about funding. Marlowe said discussion of the topic will continue at the December 16 workshop, and the public is invited to participate.

Country Way South Phase 2 preliminary plat

Commissioners passed a resolution approving a 10.22-acre, 35-home preliminary plat for the Country Way South Phase 2 neighborhood.

Extension of the City’s agreement with the Easton Newberry Sports Complex

Commissioners discussed extending an existing 20-year agreement with the jointly-owned Easton Newberry Sports Complex for an additional 35 years, from 2029 to 2064. Both the City and the Easton Foundation have proposed adding additional facilities, as the facility is often at full capacity and in need of expansion. As we reported earlier this month, the Suwannee River Water Management District is giving the City a 60-acre parcel of land that will be added to the Complex. Commissioners decided to continue the discussion after 90 days, giving themselves time to “evaluate everything.” Mayor Marlowe promised, “We’re going to work hard to find a solution that works for everybody.” 

December 16 workshop

A workshop to discuss road maintenance assessments and wastewater developer agreements will be held at 6:30 p.m. on December 16.