Five-year budget includes $1.6 million for Falls Road urbanization project scheduled to be done in 2011
Falls Road and First Avenue reconstruction work and the installation of a new municipal well top the list of major projects in a five-year capital improvement budget approved Monday by the Grafton Village Board.
Trustees unanimously adopted the budget, which calls for $19.7 million in improvements to be undertaken from 2011 to 2015.
The spending plan, which the board updates annually, includes a variety of projects funded through general property taxes and special assessments.
Village Administrator Darrell Hofland said the budget has first-year projects as part of the annual municipal budget and recommended projects for future years.
Three of the five largest expenditures in the budget are for Falls Road improvements, including $1.6 million for street urbanization between Port Washington Road and Blackhawk Drive. The project, which is expected to be jointly funded by the village and Town of Grafton, is scheduled for construction in 2011.
The urbanization work — including the installation of curb, gutter, street lights and sidewalks — will be paid for with a combination of $1.1 million from the village and $500,000 from the town. The village’s share would include $750,000 in special assessments to property owners, many of whom live in the Falls Crossing and Bluestem subdivisions, Hofland said.
Plans call for most of the improvements to be done on the south half of Falls Road, which abuts properties currently in the village, Hofland said. About 90 property owners are expected to be included in the assessment area.
“The village has agreed to take the lead in the project,” Hofland said. “The expectation is that as properties are annexed into the village, deferred special assessments will be paid by property owners.”
Hofland described the urbanization effort as a “high-priority project in light of the poor conditions of the road and increased traffic in the area.”
Design and engineering work on the project is scheduled to be completed this summer. A public informational meeting will be held in July, when property owners can provide input and ask questions, Hofland said.
Following any design changes, a second informational meeting will be held in the fall, he added.
The village’s other top five expenditures in the capital improvement budget are $1 million to reconstruct First Avenue from
Wisconsin Avenue to Falls Road; $939,000 for an east-side well; $865,000 to reconstruct Falls Road between Wisconsin and First avenues; and $812,500 to build a sewage-pumping lift station on River Bend Road.
The lift station, planned for 2012, would replace the Falls Road lift station when it has exceeded capacity and also eliminate the need for the Blackhawk Valley lift station.
The other three projects, Hofland said, are planned for 2015 as “place holder items, to make sure the Village Board has them available for future needs.”
The First Avenue project and Falls Road reconstruction from Wisconsin to First avenues would both be paid for using tax incremental revenue generated in the south commercial district.
The new well, which would be the village’s eighth, was recommended in a 2001 water-system master plan that cites projections for increased population and consumer demand.
Also included in the capital improvement budget are public safety equipment; police and fire facilities; park, recreation, library, public works and open-space facilities; and development and redevelopment projects.
Among the park projects are first-phase construction of a south-side facility to serve residents in the Falls Crossing subdivision in 2011 and a north-side facility for the Black Hawk Valley subdivision in 2012.
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