SOUTHWICK – DPW Director Randy Brown and Finance Committee member Art Pinell met with the Select Board on Tuesday night to discuss the potential of hooking up a sewer system at Lakewood Village, an apartment community located at 160 Point Grove Rd.
According to Brown, he’s recently met with Mary Thayer, owner of Lakewood Village, about the possibility of extending the sewer line to three of the buildings on the property. Currently, the sewer main stops within a half-mile of Lakewood Village and this extension would allow the people in those buildings at Lakewood Village the ability to tie into the sewer line.
The Select Board discusses the potential sewer connection with Lakewood Village. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
While Thayer is very interested in hooking up to the sewer, there are also 13 properties not affiliated with Lakewood Village that are within close range of the sewer connection and could tie in.
Since there is a connection fee that would be due to the town if Lakewood Village connected to the sewer line, Brown indicated that the town could give Lakewood Village some sort of credit or discount for paying the connection fee for the three buildings and the 13 properties.
The connection fee is estimated to cost $2,600, and another $6,500 to put in the stub, which is the branch in the main pipeline in the road that goes to each property that’s hooked up on the sewer line.
Brown sees a clear benefit to the town if they can make this connection happen.
“We get 13 properties that could tie in right away and there’s no cost to the town to bring that service,” said Brown. “There’s little risk to the town.”
At the meeting, Brown was looking for support from the Select Board to move forward with this idea.
“Can we make something work?” said Select Board Chairman Joe Deedy. “Yeah, absolutely.”
Select Board Vice-Chairman Russ Fox agrees with Deedy to support the idea.
“It’s a tremendous benefit for Lakewood Village to go with this deal,” said Fox.
Brown then said that he’ll be meeting with Thayer again to further discuss the sewer connection.
