Kuna City Council members offer some relief to LID landowners

Kuna City Council members voted Tuesday night to ease the financial burden to the landowners participating in the local improvement district that’s funding the wastewater treatment plant.
Acknowledging that the new facility is oversized beyond service to the 2,700 acres of land in the LID, council members agreed to drop the price attributed to the LID and agreed to have the city pick up the remaining cost.
“We’ve discussed a balanced approach that helps the LID owners but also, unfortunately, puts a little bit of the burden on the city and a burden on the community,” council member Lisa Bachman said. “But given the way things have turned out, we didn’t have much choice.”
Based on preliminary assessment notices sent out in October, LID landowners are on the hook for about $27.4 million in construction costs for the sewer plant, which is in operation now near the southeast corner of Lake Hazel and Ten Mile roads.
Based on that assessment, a sewer connection costs $3,205.18. A landowner with 35 acres in the LID, for example, has a benefit of 105 sewer connections and an assessment of $336,543.90.
Under the new scenario approved Tuesday night, though, LID landowners are on the hook for only $25.3 million in construction costs. With that price tag, the 8,353 sewer connections promised in the LID would cost $3,028 each. So, for example, the landowner with 35 acres in the LID, would now be on the hook for $317,940.
The city also agreed to remove two pieces of property from the assessment roll totaling 253 sewer connections, dropping the total number of sewer connections to 8,100.
In the end, the city would need to make up the difference owed to the banks, which totals $2.8 million.
A revenue bond or judicial confirmation are two of the options for the city to come up with the money, Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy said after the meeting Tuesday night.

You can read more of this story in this week's Kuna Melba News.