Crooked Run West, Tap Fee discussion – few substantive answers

A Monday, October 21 Front Royal Town Council Work Session was bracketed by a presentation by Crooked Run West principal Tom Mercuro on his argument as to why the Town should agree to extend its central water-sewer utility to his again revamped Crooked Run West primarily residential development, and a revisiting of Interim Mayor Matt Tederick’s’ initiative to slash some Town water-sewer connection Tap Fees.

It was a good bracketing as the two issues are intertwined as to the future of residential development in the county on both sides of the town limits.

However whether anything was cleared up by the two discussions remains to be seen. Mercuro traversed a dizzying power point presentation referencing the need to have his residential development in place to generate the revenue he needs to build a bridge to that development.

“Housing is the income we’re looking for,” Mercuro told council, shortly shifting to the question, “Where’s that money coming from – I don’t know, that’s why I’m here today.”

Mercuro also presented charts indicating his now 600 apartment, 150 assisted living units residential development would not threaten to max out the Town’s available or near future water supply.

Crooked Run West principal Tom Mercuro pleads his case to the interim mayor and council. Photo and video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

However Mercuro’s water usage chart presentation was halted by Councilwoman Letasha Thompson’s observation by remote phone hook up that his gallons per day (GPD) usage information was incorrect. Mercuro’s claim of 100 to 125 GPD usage per residential unit was incorrect, Thompson pointed out, referencing online federal government data bases indicating that GPD usage was estimated at around 100 GPD per person, with 2.7 persons per unit the average estimate on residential housing occupancy.

A quick online check at press row indicated Thompson was correct, essentially tripling Mercuro’s water usage estimate.

As the presentation and discussion of it reached a conclusion, Interim Mayor Tederick polled council on moving a vote on the Crooked Run West request to an upcoming meeting agenda.

“I’m not ready to vote on this,” Councilman, former Mayor and former Town Public Works Director Gene Tewalt told his colleagues.

“I agree,” Thompson said via phone hook up.

“What are the missing pieces?” Councilman Jacob Meza wondered at exactly would require additional time and review.

After noting recent changes to the Crooked Run West plan that he felt required more time to analyze, Tewalt added that a delay might perhaps also be warranted because the request would require a radical change to the Town’s water policy as it applies to extension beyond the town limits.

What water policy?

What change? – Seemed to be the collective council majority reaction to that news.

Even Tederick who has been in the midst of the Town-County Route 522/340 North Corridor Agreement discussion since the mid-1990’s seemed surprised.

“Why haven’t I heard this before?” Tederick asked staff.

You have – “Councilman Tewalt has raised the issue a number of times,” soon-to-be-departed Town Manager Joe Waltz informed the mayor and Tewalt’s colleagues.

From the start Tewalt’s issue has been that the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Town and County regarding continued County requests for Town central water-sewer utilities outside Town without annexation have been only considered for primarily industrial or commercial development seen as an economic benefit to the entire community.

With the County’s anti-annexation 1998-99 North Corridor Agreement being in place for 20 years, some may have forgotten that annexation prior to the extension of central municipal utilities beyond its boundaries is the normal municipal procedure.

“We don’t provide water for residential development. We are jumping the gun too fast – I don’t understand why,” an exasperated Tewalt reiterated to his colleagues.

“So you want to change the water policy first?” Meza asked, leaving the implications of such a change on the Town and County’s relative economic and developmental futures swinging in the wind.

Interim Mayor, soon-to-be Interim Town Manager Tederick took Meza’s side, noting that discussion of the Crooked Run West residential plan had been going on for months – “We’re jerking business people around,” Tederick offered of his perspective.

Tederick has couched both the Crooked Run West residential water-sewer request and his Town water-sewer Tap Fee reduction initiative as pro-growth moves, reversing a perceived past anti-growth Council and staff stance.

What has been absent from the discussion is where residential growth is supposed to occur according to established planning and state guidelines. That was a major topic in 2014 when the County agreed to a friendly annexation of 604 acres of Front Royal Limited Partnership (FRLP) land off Happy Creek Road into the Town limits. That development of as many as 800 or so units now on the Town’s east side, as well as another hundred or more units on another 150-acre FRLP parcel in that area appears to have floundered due to the precise, past anti-growth agenda Tederick has referenced.

And that floundering has come despite the fact FRLP’s location fits perfectly into planning guidelines on Urban Development Areas (UDA’s) in the vicinity of existing residential development and utility lines to serve that development within town and city boundaries, as opposed to more remote farm and Agricultural land.

Tederick and staff have recently met with FRLP representatives about what might be done to jump start FRLP residential development. However nowhere in the Crooked Run West power point on water usage or subsequent council discussion was the impact on Town water capacities from the potential of water use from a thousand or more in-town FRLP residential units broached.

Nor has there been much reference to a major change in the Town’s water policy to accommodate the Crooked Run West residential usage request setting a precedent that any similar future request must legally be accommodated?

See the Crooked Run presentation, discussion and related Tap Fee discussion in this exclusive Royal Examiner video: