As the Baltimore County Council nears a vote on a bill to give property owners who have operational septic systems a choice in whether they connect to the public sewer system, some affected Perry Hall residents are still looking for more answers.
Introduced by Councilman David Marks, an Upper Falls Republican, the bill “greatly improves” the transparency of the process by which households are connected to the county’s public sewer system, he said at a meeting Wednesday.
Under the bill, before a contract for construction or financing of a project is finalized, county officials would be required to identify properties that do not have failing septic systems and give the owners a full disclosure of estimated project costs. The county would also have to provide residents with a schedule of anticipated assessments and financial responsibilities in a legal agreement to be put in county land records.
However, a property owner would not be required to finance such a project if the county doesn’t identify their property or provide them with the disclosures before a construction contract goes into effect.
“I think the issue … is that homeowners with fully functional septic systems should not be forced in,” Marks said. “They should have the option. If it is a failing system, that’s a different story, but it’s those with fully functioning septic [that] should not be forced to opt in.”
The legislation comes nearly eight years after the county recommended extending public sewer lines to Perry Hall Manor. At the time, the county found that 21 of the community’s roughly 129 homes had failing septic systems.
Though the county originally planned to install a pump station to connect the community to public sewer — a plan supported by residents — officials weren’t able to find a location for it. Now, the county plans to install grinder pumps, which grind waste into a slurry before pumping it to a public sewer line.
The change in design, however, is concerning property owners who opted to connect to the sanitary sewer project years ago, who now worry the pumps could be costly, need more frequent replacements or restrict home improvements.
The pump station originally planned for the community would have cost $10 million, with the county contributing $5 million and the state pitching in $4.5 million. The remaining cost, divided among 120 properties, would have been roughly $4,000 per property owner, according to Lauren Buckler, director of the Department of Public Works and Transportation.
Buckler, who spoke out against the measure at the council’s Oct. 28 meeting, estimated that costs for installing the grinder pumps would be more than $5,000 per property owner, though without a finalized grinder pump project design, total costs can’t be confirmed.
Brad Kroner, deputy director of government affairs for County Executive Kathy Klausmeier’s administration, said the bill as written could make it difficult for the county to plan, design and issue a request for proposals for a sewer project without knowing which properties are connected to it. But he offered a compromise: instead of deferring the opt-in phase of the project until after a request for proposals is released, the county could create an “opt-out phase.”
The changes would require the county to notify impacted residents when the project reached the 95% review phase, Kroner said. Within 30 days, a property owner could opt out through a written form.
Perry Hall resident Rosemarie Lazzati said the proposed opt-out would give the community what it had initially wanted, but raised broader concerns about the lack of transparency and clarity with the yearslong process.
“Personal property rights are huge, and many people buy their homes looking at it as an investment,” she said. “We deserve transparency, we deserve the respect of transparency, and moving forward, I think legislating transparency is important here.”
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