Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
January 25, 2007 issue
Town Council Tables Water Request
Story by Kathleen McFadden
Boone Utilities Director Rick Miller pointed out to members of the Boone Town Council last week that the current code prohibits the granting of a water/sewer request by the developers of a proposed affording housing project because it is in the town’s secondary pressure zone. Despite the code prohibition, the council voted unanimously to table the request pending a meeting of the town’s water subcommittee to review the intention of the code language.
Tom Honeycutt, one of three partners in Laurel Ridge Housing LLC, appeared in front of the Boone Town Council at the regular monthly meeting last Thursday to request water service to a proposed housing project off Highway 105. Honeycutt explained that the apartment complex would provide affordable housing for income-eligible families and the elderly, with one-bedroom apartments renting for approximately $420 and three-bedroom units renting for $600 to $610. Eligible applicants would be those with income equal to 60 percent or less of the area median income, approximately $53,000, Honeycutt said. The development would not be rent subsidized.
The property is zoned R-3 (multi-family residential), and the complex is planned for the back 8 to 10 acres of an approximately 14-acre tract. The front portion that fronts Highway 105 is zoned for business and is being reserved by the seller.
Honeycutt and his partners, who have developed several such complexes, use federal tax credits to partially finance the projects. Because they are building affordable income- and rent-restricted housing, they qualify for federal tax credits that they subsequently sell. The proceeds from the tax credit sale are expected to finance approximately 55 percent of the project, Honeycutt told the council, with a $1.5 million first mortgage, along with state tax credits rounding out the financing package.
Federal law associated with the tax credits prohibits renting units to full-time students.
Honeycutt said that the project size had been reduced from a planned 120 units to 84 units to comply with the town’s recently enacted viewshed ordinances that regulate density and land disturbance. Consequently, current plans are to include 20 one-bedroom units, 42 two-bedroom units and 22 three-bedroom units.
Miller estimated that the development would require a water allocation of 25,500 gallons, but pointed out that the code does not permit extensions in secondary pressure zones where the development is planned. The higher elevations of the designated secondary pressure zones require additional pumps to move the water, and the town council has previously denied requests for water extensions in the secondary pressure zone.
Following a discussion about whether the request constituted a “connection” or an “extension,” council members agreed that the code, as written, classified the request for service as an extension.
Council member Bunk Spann said he thought the project would be “very good for the town,” and added that regulations sometimes don’t provide the support the council needs to do something good for the community.
Council member Lynne Mason pointed out that a meeting of water subcommittee was coming up soon and made a motion that the council defer a decision until the subcommittee had the opportunity to look into the intention of the code language.
Her motion passed unanimously.