During last Spring's informational meetings, I recall the betterment fee number bandied about for the Parkwood-Tempest Knob phase was around $18,000.

Of course, that number is only for the actual Town fee and does not include the homeowner's cost to lay pipe from his or her house to the street connection, which will typically add several thousand dollars to the homeowner's overall cost of sewering.  So if Dave Simmons actually quoted $25,000 as an amount, perhaps he was referring to the typical homeowner's overall cost and not just the actual betterment fee due the Town.

Last edited by Petethemeat (2010-03-21 17:07:03)

Pete, good evening.

Let me clarify some of the issues for you, as I have some knowledge here.

1. Betterment: At this point, they are dealing with an estimate, until all of the work is complete. Since they are working underground, it is impossible to know actual costs until they are incurred. Once the actual costs are known, there will be a filing in the Plymouth registry of Deeds with the hard numbers.

Let us assume, then, that their experience in Wareham to date makes their estimate realistic. So, each individual parcel will have a betterment of $19,000, using the top end of the range. This may vary from other areas of Town due to numerous factors, as noted in the PDF file you referenced.

The $19,000 estimate is independent of some of the other costs you mentioned. Let's look at that.

2. Betterment payoff: The property owner has essentially three options for paying a betterment.
a. Write a check for the entire amount.
b. Opt to pay over some number of years from 1 to 19.
c. Pay over 20 years.

The amount of the betterment is the same, regardless of which option is chosen by the property owner. What changes, however, is the INTEREST. Option 2a incurs no interest, so the total payment is $19,000. Option 2b will incur interest over the life of the payments, depending on the number of years selected. Ditto for option 2c.

the interest rate is set by the sewer commishes, and is generally pretty low, not over 5 %. I saw 2 % mentioned, and in the current interest rate environment, that is not surprising. Not only that, but the interest calculation is very straight forward. No rule of 78's like car payments. No tricky amortization schedules like mortgages. If you elect 20 years, you pay 1/20th of the betterment amount each year, plus interest on the unpaid balance at ANNUAL compounding.

3 Connection: none of the above includes the cost to connect the dwelling or commercial building on a parcel to the sewer line. That cost is on the property owner, and will vary based on distance from the line to foundation, topography, soil condition, etc.

In the short run, it may seem expensive. In the long run, you need to consider property values in a cleaner waterfront environment vs. a more polluted one. Very hard to measure. i sold a house in a Town which had NO sewer, and had rejected Federal money thru the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930's. It cost me $25,000 to upgrade the septic system to Title V requirements, or else No Sale. It may sting now, but the better option in a Town like Wareham with all those small lots designed for seasonal use is a modern sewer system.

The Bos  and the ta were well aware of this price and purposely planed trying to hide this until after the election. Simmons was a liability, why else would they want to fire him before the election and cause more complaints of them firing everyone.  This is true !!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey tin foil hats ummmm I'm not a public official calling a "laid" off employee a liar in a public forum who probably will sue the town over his termination. So I'm laughing at you idiots!