Assessment Fees Coming for Residents Along Waterline

Residents and businesses along parts of Center Groton Road, Colonel Ledyard Highway, Lorenz Industrial Parkway and Gallup Hill Road will soon be looking at assessment fees, which are just a part of the cost involved in connecting their properties to town waterlines that went in between 2001 and 2003.

The assessments average $4,700, going towards the cost of the project, and will affect some 200 properties. The water comes up from Groton, with beneficiaries including Ledyard High School.

The fees will cover about an eighth of the cost of the $8 million Water Pollution Control Authority project. Property owners have the option of paying their share over a 20-year period with interest. Those affected have already received notice in the mail. A WPCA meeting on Aug. 16 at Ledyard High School explained the policy.

Some who would be required to pay the assessments object to the fee in light of the costs associated with hooking to the new system, and also considering that many already have wells.

Steve Hayes, who owns Hayes Custom Cycles as well as a private residence on Center Drive off of Colonel Ledyard Highway, is one resident who takes issue with the assessment. If charged, he will pay a total of $4,400 to the town. Currently he is working on an appeal to the town.

Hayes is irked because he claims the town had told him he would be unable to hook up to public water in 2005 and that he would need to drill a well. Now that he has paid for the well, he is looking at an assessment fee.

Were he to want to hook his property to the new pipes, he would have to pay $12,000 to install a curb stop in order to tap into the new waterlines.

According to Ledyard Town Council Chairman Terry Jones, one advantage the pipes provide is that they reduce homeowner insurance for property owners. 

“There is a benefit that’s quantifiable to each resident,” Jones said. He cited the fact that firefighters can now use the high pressure from the new water pipes to put out fires without the need for pumper trucks.

The list of property owners are “not the final list,” Jones said. People can still appeal to get exemption from the fees.