Infrastructure, funding options top conversation at day two of strategic planning

Day two of the Vestavia Hills City Council's annual strategic planning session had nearly as much on the agenda as the first, and resulted in the council putting together a more tangible way forward for many major projects.

Infrastructure

The day began with the city's engineering team presenting the various infrastructure projects planned, in the works and needed throughout the city, beginning with roadway paving and moving to stormwater infrastructure, sidewalks and traffic.

City Engineer Christopher Brady and Senior Civil Engineer Lori Beth Kearley presented a variety of topics, beginning with the resurfacing needs throughout the city.

There are 171 miles of roads in the city, and about 74 percent of that infrastructure is 40 years old or older, Brady said.

“We’re dealing with old infrastructure,” he said.

In 2017, the city repaved just over 3 miles of roads. At that pace, to repave everything that needs it or will soon need it, it would take over 57 years.

Over the next three years, Brady reminded the council the city already has 20.8 remaining miles of roads planned for resurfacing, as they are in “poor” condition and need to be fixed as soon as possible.

Brady, Kearley and City Manager Jeff Downes also went back through the public meeting that was held in the fall about Crosshaven Drive and the improvements it needs to sustain the level of traffic it services.

Downes relayed to the council that Jefferson County has begun the process of bringing condemnations on the properties reluctant to grant right-of-way for improvements at the intersection of Crosshaven Drive and Green Valley Road, a federal TOPICS project that has been moving slowly over the last few years.

“They [the county] are committed to this, and they are embarrassed by the length of time it’s taken to get the TOPICS project mobilized,” Downes said.

In the meantime, Downes reminded the council that a preliminary study has been done and split the widening of Crosshaven into a northern and southern phase, which could be done separately or concurrently.

The concerns about traffic and speeding on East Street were also addressed once more, and Kearley said that the department is planning on doing another traffic count over the first or second weekend of March during one of BUSA’s tournaments.

In addition to paving, Brady and Kearley walked the council through the various sidewalk projects in progress and planned, as well as the need for the city to pass an official ADA-compliance policy.

The other major infrastructure discussion focused on stormwater management, and the city’s push to get new and improved ordinances on the books before the July 1 deadline for its MS4 ADEM permit.

Currently, Brady explained, the Stormwater Management Authority that includes Jefferson County and its municipalities is working on model regulations that its members could adopt.

Those models will be discussed at a Feb. 12 public hearing. Then, Brady said, Vestavia has until the end of March to approve or change what it is willing to ratify.

Ideally, Downes said, all of the parties would already have an idea of what they are comfortable with by the Feb. 12 meeting, so he wanted the council to have time to give their input as well as seek it from the public.

The council will also need to approve two new ordinances and amend a current ordinance. Those ordinances deal with the quality of water that is coming off of sites, sedimentation and erosion control and ongoing and post-construction stormwater management requirements for new developments.

“These ordinances meet the strict adherence to ADEM requirements for the permit,” Downes said.

There were also tangible infrastructure needs the council discussed, including where progress is on the 27 stormwater structure improvements that were identified and included in the 2018 fiscal year budget.

Brady reported that the legwork on those projects has begun, and that survey work has been commenced in the highest-priority areas.

BOE Concerns

Interim Superintendent Charles Mason paid a visit to the session on behalf of the Vestavia Hills Board of Education Friday morning, and rather than filling them in on the superintendent search or the restructuring program — which he said were truly short-term issues — Mason said he wanted to address what he sees as long-term needs and concerns for the school district.

Ultimately, he said, it comes down to funding.

Mason suggested the council think about the school system as a young family that has a young child and perhaps just purchased a new home. If you look at their current financial situation, things look good. But if you look down the road 10 or 15 years, Mason said, and the family has a few more kids, needs to buy a bigger house and start paying for college, suddenly what was a good financial standing could be hairy.

And with the predicted growth of the district, particularly in Liberty Park, the fixes that are alleviating the overcrowding in the school system now may not be the same perfect-fit in 15 years as they will be in 2019.

“It’s predictable that it will grow,” Mason said, and while it may be 15 or more years down the road, eventually the district is going to have to take another look at building a second high school.

However, Mason said, unless an additional local revenue source is established, funding such a major project — upwards of $70 million dollars, plus land costs — would be near impossible.

Putting it all together

After breaking for lunch, the council convened one final time to sit down and look at how everything discussed over the two days fits together — and how much it will cost.

Downes walked the council through the price tag of each major issue first.

To implement the entirety of the Community Spaces Plan would cost just over $41 million, the remaining repaving effort about $3 million, the remaining major stormwater infrastructure needs $535,000, the entire sidewalk paving plan $17.5 million and refinancing the Gold’s Gym property $8.9 million.

Combined with a smattering of other topics, to do everything discussed at the sessions from a capital perspective would cost right around $76 million total.

Downes said the city currently has about $2 million in capital reserves, but that he prefers to leave that alone in case of emergencies such as the stormwater pipe failure on Morgan Drive.

In order to finance such a large sum, he said, the city would need to find a revenue source that could support debt service for it.

Councilors concurred.

“It can’t be done without a new revenue source,” Mayor Pro-Tem Rusty Weaver said.

Downes had the council go through the list of items and rank them on the Vestavia Hills Listens live survey platform.

The council ranked the new community building at the Gold’s Gym facility, improvements at Wald Park, improvements at the Cahaba Heights ballfields, road work on Crosshaven Drive and stormwater management as their top five priorities. Residential street lighting and doing the entirety of the sidewalk plan at once were the lowest on the list.

After going through an exercise with the current numbers, Downes said that the city could actualize a sizeable chunk of the Community Spaces Plan, address the needs of the New Merkel House, refinance the Gold’s Gym property, do the high-priority 20.8 miles of repaving work, take care of stormwater the major stormwater infrastructure needs, build $2.5 million worth of sidewalk construction and widen Crosshaven for about $58 million.

If the city were able to find a $3 million revenue source and amortize the financing over 30 years, it could comfortably borrow that amount without seriously affecting the city’s credit rating.

City Councilor Kimberly Cook said that to her, if the money was just for parks and recreation, she would not be for such an endeavor, but because it addresses some of the major infrastructure needs, she thinks the city should try to accomplish as much as possible.

Specific revenue sources were not discussed at the meeting, other than an anecdotal 1 percent increase in sales tax or few mil increase for ad valorem.

Downes said he would begin drafting a possible or “straw man” resolution that the council could consider and pick apart.