Oxford Township officials are moving forward with plans to connect the Lake Villa Manufactured Home Community along Lakeville Rd. to the municipal water system.
Last week, the township board voted 4-3 to fund the project by using $600,000 from the water fund and borrowing $1 million from the sewer fund for a period of 10 years at an interest rate to be determined.
The plan is to extend a 16-inch township water main from the Willow Lake subdivision to Lake Villa. The majority of the 6,000-foot-long main would run along the north side of Lakeville Rd. through the Koenig Sand & Gravel property. The township has been working with Koenig owner Peter Fredericks to obtain the necessary easements.
Connecting Lake Villa to the township water system will end its dependence on a separate well system that exclusively serves the park. This system is old and has been experiencing problems.
Township officials are stepping in because Lake Villa’s well system is their responsibility. Although not connected to the municipal water system, the park’s four wells have been owned by the township since September 2006 and Lake Villa residents are considered township water customers.
Based on past experiences, officials no longer consider the existing well system to be reliable.
In May, one of the wells experienced a pump failure. It was repaired and put back into service, but the situation highlighted the potential for a water crisis in Lake Villa.
Of the four existing wells, one does not operate efficiently, one provides its expected capacity in terms of gallons per minute (gpm) and the remaining two wells do not produce their expected capacity, according to an e-mail Connie Sims, of the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office (WRC), wrote to township Trustee Jack Curtis, who chairs the water/sewer committee.
For example, one of the wells is expected to yield 600 gpm, but its pumping capacity is closer to 300 gpm.
‘There are currently three operating wells with sufficient supply provided two of those are working in tandem,? according to Sims? e-mail.
The e-mail explained that ‘meeting the domestic demand is not a problem? in Lake Villa as ‘all lots are not occupied.?
Lake Villa has 851 home sites, but only 520 are occupied based on a visual inspection of the park conducted by township Clerk Curtis Wright. As for the rest of the home sites, 54 have unoccupied homes on them, while 277 are vacant lots.
However, Sims wrote, ‘There is concern with the amount of previous well/pump failures and reduced pumping capacity of several wells. Meeting fire flow could be a concern when wells are out of service also.?
Jim Sharpe, the township’s engineer, told the board back in May the WRC estimated the municipality would need to spend $409,000 between now and 2018 ‘to replace the outdated and failing equipment just to keep the well site operational.?
‘The WRC says that everything’s in pretty bad condition, that they just keep it limping along, basically,? Sharpe told officials.
On top of this $409,000, Curtis said the township would have to spend an estimated $1.1 million to purchase land around the well site to prevent potential contamination and construct an elevated storage tower that would serve Lake Villa exclusively. The additional land and tower would be required by the state.
So, the total cost to repair and improve the existing Lake Villa well system would be approximately $1.5 million.
Instead of doing this, the township board has opted to spend $1.6 million to connect Lake Villa to the municipal system, which would allow the system to someday be extended south to Drahner Rd. and west to M-24 in order to form a loop.
Treasurer Joe Ferrari expressed his concern over how the water fund would repay the $1 million loan from the sewer fund.
‘You have to have the money to pay it back,? he said, ‘There’s got to be something done on the other side to help pay that back.?
Ferrari said the township needs to address both the $45-per-quarter debt service fee ($180 annually) it charges water customers and the $6,075 per Residential Equivalent Unit (REU) tap fee it charges homes and businesses to connect to the system.
An REU is a unit of measurement equal to the average water usage of a single family home. A home is assigned a value of 1 REU whereas a business, such as a restaurant or car wash, can be assigned multiple REUs and pay for all of them.
He noted the debt service fee, which was set at $45 per REU per quarter in 2010, is due to expire at the end of the year, so it needs to be reviewed anyway.
The treasurer made a motion directing the water/sewer committee to study both charges and ‘make a recommendation to the township board on whether those need to be adjusted to help pay for the $1 million loan from the sewer fund.?
It passed 6-1.
When Lake Villa connects to the municipal water system, the township will be able to charge it the debt service fee. The township would charge the park as a whole and it would then be up to the park’s owner to decide how to pass that cost on to Lake Villa residents.
In March 2007, the township board voted 4-3 to not charge Lake Villa for debt service until the park is connected to the municipal system.
According to a June 26 opinion letter from township attorney Gary Rentrop, the township can charge Lake Villa for debt service based on the total number of home sites within the park ‘regardless of whether they are occupied.?
The township assigns manufactured homes a value of 0.85 REU, meaning their average water usage is considered to be slightly less that of a single family home. As a result, the debt charge for a manufactured home is $38.25 per quarter as opposed to the $45 single family homes are assessed.
Based on the current debt service charge, the township would charge Lake Villa $32,551 per quarter for its 851 home sites.