Consider all implications

The city should tread very carefully as it mulls a possible plan to allow extension of a sewer beyond the city limits along Daniels Road to the proposed new Nazarene church property.

As nice as it would be to help out one of the larger church congregations in town, one that has willingly opened its facilities for community activities, there are some serious concerns regarding overall city growth and development that must be considered.

The plan the city is considering, after turning down the initial proposal last week, is to modify its ordinances to allow extension of a sewer line outside the city limits to a non-profit group's development. Because of its location, the city cannot currently annex the property, since it is not contiguous with city boundaries (and landowners in between currently do not want to be annexed into the city's property tax base).

In the past, city ordinances were created to prohibit such extensions for subdivision requests by private developers. Those developers are going to have some serious heartburn over what they are likely to see as "arbitrary and capricious" manipulation of the city's previous policy to allow this project. So the city has to consider its legal liabilities in this case, as those developers are likely to seriously consider legal action against the city.

Furthermore, the city must consider if that is an area in which it wants to promote growth. Running a sewer line to the Nazarene property southeast of town would create an attractive line along which private developers would conceivably want to create subdivisions that they would then want to link into the line.

But could they, if the extension is only for non-profit groups?

Depending on how such an ordinance is worded, it could either encourage or inhibit growth in the area.

And if, like the Nazarene property, that growth is not contiguous to the city limits, the city could conceivably wind up providing a service to private homeowners not available to other homeowners in other nearby but non-contiguous subdivisions, with city taxpayers footing the bill for the upkeep and maintenance. Those other "non-contiguous" homeowners could very well demand similar consideration, or manipulate the ordinance by encouraging some non-profit group to seek an extension, beyond, but running past, their property. They could then request that they be allowed to hook up to the line, while remaining outside the property tax boundaries of the city.

There also are other non-profit groups that will be looking at this closely. The Catholic Church, for example, also has non-contiguous property that could be developed for church facilities. The rec district also has non-contiguous property it wants to develop (and governments, by definition, are non-profit).

The city should seriously question how many cans of worms it wants to open.

The advantage, of course, is that if the city does wish to grow in that area (or other areas using the same criteria), it will already have sewer lines in place, which would be paid for by the Nazarenes (or other non-profit groups).

So while it is a nice idea to help out the Nazarenes (a truly good group of people), and it clearly has some pluses and minuses, there are, nevertheless, some long-term implications that the city needs to seriously consider before it moves forward with this idea.

-- Kelly Everitt