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New housing development on Carriage Way off Goode Street Wednesday July 11, 2018 in Ballston, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)
New housing development on Carriage Way off Goode Street Wednesday July 11, 2018 in Ballston, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)
Photo: John Carl D'Annibale, Albany Times Union
New housing development on Carriage Way off Goode Street Wednesday July 11, 2018 in Ballston, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)
New housing development on Carriage Way off Goode Street Wednesday July 11, 2018 in Ballston, NY. (John Carl D'Annibale/Times Union)
Photo: John Carl D'Annibale, Albany Times UnionBALLSTON – Though Supervisor Tim Szczepaniak said it can’t be done, residents who hooked into a Goode Street water line for $9,100 once again demanded a refund.
At Tuesday’s town board meeting, about two dozen residents of the old water district 14 said it wasn’t fair that they paid the price to install the line, which was built to accommodate the new Town Hall, and that new homes around them now only pay $2,000.
“We are no longer willing to accept the gross disparity that resulted from this board’s decision to reduce the connection fee,” Mark Swain said. “We propose that you include in this (2020) budget the funds to provide a lump sum of $7,100, or $8,250 for those who paid interest, to the homeowners who paid the larger fee and still reside at the same address.”
The room erupted in applause for Swain who was followed by other residents who demanded the same, including Fred Como who said he was “appealing to their better angels.”
“We are not saying you did anything wrong,” Como said. “We are saying it ain’t fair. It’s as simple as that.”
Szczepaniak has said that refunds would be illegal, but might consider other avenues. At Tuesday's meeting, he deferred to town attorney Debra Kaelin who said that refunding money to the 37 homeowners on Goode Street who paid the $9,100 and still live in the homes would be complicated.
“The question becomes do you want to do this, should you do this and lastly how do you do it?” Kaelin asked. “Who do you reimburse? Do you reimburse the initial homeowner who paid that money? Do you reimburse the current taxpayer? Who pays for it? The water district is consolidated. Do you apportion it over the entire water district?”
To the public’s disapproval, she compared it to buying a car in 2016 and then asking for a refund later when the price of the car goes down a few years later.
The water line was paid for by a $575,000 bond that was approved by the Town Board in 2004. At the time, then-Supervisor Raymond Callanan said the homes along the Goode Street line were invited to connect into it for a fixed fee of $9,100. He also promised the fee would never go up or down.
But when the water districts were consolidated in 2016, the hook-up fee dropped to $2,000.
“We’re not questioning the legality,” Como said. “I’m sure you did it legally. But that doesn’t make it right. ...We paid for the bond and now everyone else gets to hook in for $2,000. If you can sleep with that, good for you."
This is not the first time the Goode Street water line has sparked controversy.
In 2016, the water line became the subject of a legal wrangle between the town and the state Department of Agriculture and Markets after the Town Board approved, in a 3-2 vote, an extension of the line into the agriculture district to accommodate developer Thomas Benuscak.
After the town initially won the suit in April 2018, a state Appellate Court overturned the decision, thus stopping a 1,650-foot extension of the water line that was intended to serve a dozen large homes in a new development.
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October 29, 2019 at 07:17PM
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Ballston residents continue to demand water line refund - Times Union
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