CLAREMONT — An estimated $1.5 million project that would extend city sewer lines to a manufactured housing park on Paddy Hollow Road has hit a snag, as one property owner refuses to allow the city to bury sewer pipes across a vacant lot on Clay Hill Road.
That owner, Norm Stowell, wants the one-time sewer hook-up fee waived for eventual development on the land before he signs the easement that would allow the project to cross his property.
Claremont officials have refused, saying the waiver would be a violation of city law.
The resulting stalemate has stalled the three-year long effort to replace aging septic tanks at 96 homes in the Pleasant Valley Estates park and has city and park officials wondering what to do next.
“We could send this out to bid tomorrow (with Stowell’s easement) ... now, I don’t know what to do,” Claremont Planning Director Anthony Lyons said on Tuesday.
Everything was moving along until Stowell raised the hook-up fee issue about two weeks ago, said Project Manager Kurt Beek. Beek said negotiations since have gone nowhere.
The city has been working over the past year to secure easements from about 20 property owners in the mile and a half stretch between Pleasant Valley Estates and Claremont’s sewage treatment plant on Plains Road. Stowell, the founder of Crown Point Cabinetry in Claremont, is the lone hold-out among those property owners, Lyons said.
When reached by telephone at the bed and breakfast inn he operates in Wilmot, Stowell said the situation was fairly simple and non-negotiable.
The city could either waive the hook-up fee or reimburse him the equivalent cost when he develops the 10-acre parcel.
Public works officials did not respond to requests for information, though Lyons estimated the fee could come to several hundred dollars, depending on the type of development.
“I consider that a small price to pay,” Stowell said.
Meanwhile, Pleasant Valley residents will continue to make do with the septic systems, some of which are more than 30 years old.
About 18 percent of residents who responded to a 2003 survey of the septic situation in the park said they experienced seeping from the tanks onto their lawn, system backups and/or strong odors, according to documents at the Claremont planning office.
To resolve those problems, the Pleasant Valley board teamed up with the city in 2003 and got a $650,000 block grant to help pay the costs of extending city sewer there. The cooperative housing organization will pick up the rest of the cost with money from a refinancing package and partnership with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, according to city documents.
About 86 percent of residents at the park were considered to have low to moderate incomes in 2003, according to the grant application.
While many Pleasant Valley residents acknowledge the septic problems there, opinion on hooking up to city sewer is somewhat mixed.
Hazel Meski, an 87-year-old resident at the park, said she hoped to get rid of her 32-year-old septic tank and onto city sewer as soon as possible.
“We can’t keep these in the ground much longer,” Meski said. “It’s so contaminated now.”
Others, like Vincent Ringus, said they preferred to remain independent of the city as much as possible.
Ringus, who moved to the park a year ago, said he has had little trouble with his own septic tank and been pleased with Pleasant Valley’s response to problems when they’ve arisen.
“I’m kind of against (extending city sewer lines) because anytime you bring the government into it, things go up. Taxes go up,” Ringus said. “I know we need it, but I just don’t trust the city of Claremont.”
The park is already connected to the city water supply, but residents will have to pay more for the new sewer service. To offset the cost of the sewer project, park residents raised the monthly fee for living there by $28 in 2003.
As with water, the park would likely receive one bill for sewer that would be divided among the all the homes, Lyons said.
Going around Stowell’s property could mean “tens of thousands of dollars” more on the project, Lyons said, though he was hopeful of finding some compromise.
Pleasant Valley Board Chairman Al Krumenaker, who wants city sewer at the park, said he was unsure of what would happen with the latest wrinkle but hoped to push beyond the problem soon.
“It’s for the benefit of the park and the city that we have sewer out here ... we would like to have had this done yesterday,” Krumenaker said.