The Greensboro City Council held its first work session on the Summerfield Farms Village proposal, Tuesday, Jan. 19, although Summerfield Farms Village is not on the agenda and was never mentioned.
On the agenda, the item is “Water Resources Update,” which sounds really mundane. But a portion of that report was on water and wastewater treatment capacity.
Summerfield Farms Village is a proposal by developer David Couch, who wants to develop hundreds of acres he owns in Summerfield as a mixed-use development. For the plan to work, Couch needs to convince Greensboro to pipe water north of the lakes to Summerfield and pipe the wastewater or sewage back to Greensboro. It would require Greensboro, Summerfield and Guilford County to all agree on the plan, but water and sewer from Greensboro is key.
At the work session, Water Resources Director Mike Borchers said that the state requires cities to come up with a plan when the average daily usage is 80 percent of the safe yield, and at 90 percent of safe yield the city is required to have the new water supplies online.
Greensboro is currently at 75.2 percent of its safe yield for water, which is getting close to when the state mandated planning starts. Borchers said his department had already begun talks with the Piedmont Regional Water Authority on increasing the yield from the Randleman Regional Reservoir.
The Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority is made up of Greensboro, High Point, Jamestown, Randleman, Archdale and Randolph County, and getting representatives of six governments to agree on anything is a challenge.
Along with the safe yield at 75.2 percent, Borchers noted that some of the future water supply had already been allocated for projects. The Greensboro-Randolph Megasite is allocated 1.5 million gallons a day (MGD), future infill growth 2-4 MGD, Airport Area growth 1-2 MGD, Reedy Fork Growth 1-1.5 MGD and Eastern Area Growth and Economic Development 2-4 MGD.
The only item on the list for possible future growth is listed as “North of the Lakes 2-5.5 MGD.”
There is only one project north of the lakes under consideration and that is Summerfield Farms Village.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “I think we are going to be talking about capacity a lot in the next few months.”
Vaughan also noted that the megasite would need more than 1.5 MGD with all the supply chain businesses that it was expected to attract.
Borchers said the city had more “cushion” on wastewater because the expansion of the T.Z. Osborne treatment plant puts the city at 63.4 percent of capacity for wastewater treatment.
So now our Mandate Mayor hides a major item in a mundane agenda item to stifle substantive public discussion. Mandate Mayor seems intent on not only bankrupting our city with lawsuits we dont need, parking decks only her monied supporters want, a performance arts boondoggle only the extremely well to do will ever set foot in, and now want to extend water and sewage into a different town and place that burden on regular citizens that will be footing the bill.
This is actually a simple water resources planning issue. If the Randleman Reservoir has the safe capacity to allocate an additional 2.5 MGD and sell it to the City of Greensboro, and the city has the treatment capacity without exceeding the 80% level, then the water and wastewater issue is solvable. However, just because those issues can technically be solved certainly does not mean that the project should be built. The big question is who will pay for the initial cost of running the water and sewer lines to the development and how will the cost be repaid? Should the existing Greensboro citizen bear the cost through a hike in water and sewer bills or should the developer pay for the capital cost of the lines and then form a special water service district in Summerfield that purchases finished water from the City of Greensboro, then sets their own rate structure for the service district. This would also allow for a means to fund operation and maintenance of the distribution system in the service district. If this option is not implemented, then who pays for the O&M? Greensboro? Not likely unless they annexed the entire area. This is not a new problem. Consulting engineers have dealt with this type of problem all over the state.
With all the water problems they had in Seagrove, Ramsuer and the like back in the ’90s not just no, but heck no should whoever operates the Randleman Reservoir give anything to the rich folks in Summerfield or Oak Ridge. Let them buy or build their own system with their own dollars. That’s right, just like a fire district, make a separate tax to build it if its needed. If it’s really needed, folks won’t mind, it may even lower homeowners rates with better fire ratings. If it’s deemed unnecessary other than to fatten a few folks wallets they have every right to say no, we won’t approve it or pay it.
The megasite has been sitting empty for well over a decade. It will continue to do so as long as NC taxes remain the highest in the southeast. Nancy (Pelosi) Vaughn and other delusional politicians need to quit referring to it in their deeply flawed plans.
The one statistic that was omitted in this article is the percentage of the safe yield that the City would reach when the proposed allocated projects are added into the equation. Once the water is allocated it cannot be rescinded. And then what would be the impact of adding the additional project.
Also, the developer is considering expanding the system to include additional areas of Summerfield, see the latest Northwest Observer for information on this proposed expansion.
The question remains: how is this multi-million dollar infrastructure project being paid for up front? And why all the secrecy?
The Summerfield Mayor says they aren’t paying. Developer is not paying. Developer told Skip Alston Guilford County wouldn’t pay.
So, that leaves GREENSBORO CITIZENS spending or borrowing millions to construct water and sewer for a Summerfield developer!!!
If it’s a loan or bond, why is Greensboro helping a Summerfield developer with the project? Why not a bond or loan to help actual citizens of Greensboro instead of a landowner in another Town? What if the project fails, who gets stuck with the loan: Greensboro? What about the next developer and the next? If aren’t given the same deal, will Greensboro face repercussions or lawsuits?
The developer says others can then hook onto water and sewer and several other developers in Northwest Guilford already want to. There is no way to stop the water usage once these lines are put in. Eventually Greensboro citizens will pay, through use of funds, increased utility bills, increased taxes, use of resources, maintenance costs or water shortages.
Over 1500 people signed a petition against this project on change.org. (https://www.change.org/p/greensboro-city-council-county-commissioners-help-greensboro-guilford-county-summerfield-save-taxes-stop-water-sewer-plan) . It just makes no sense that despite all the pushback and virtually no upside, Greensboro is going to such lengths to help a developer who isn’t even in the City.