BY RYAN O’CONNOR

A group of Bow residents have submitted a petitioned warrant article urging selectmen to move forward with a $12.5 million bond for a water and sewer project the town approved at the 2002 Town Meeting.

Many residents and town officials see Route 3A as a commercial and industrial gold mine. They believe constructing a municipal water and sewer system will attract businesses to the area.

If approved, this article would be nonbinding, and advisory only.

“The project was designed to increase our industrial and commercial development, and it struck me that the project wasn’t moving forward, so I felt it was time to urge selectmen to get a move on, so to speak,” said Stephen Buckley, a former Planning Board member who submitted the petition. “The more we wait, the more it’s going to cost. We approved this in 2002, and I don’t imagine the cost is going to go down; it’s only going to go up. And the longer we wait,  the less likely it is we’re going to be able to get it done.”

“The projects we approved in the Route 3A area when I was on the planning board aren’t really the types that we want to have when we know we could have more expansive commercial and industrial development if we had water and sewer there,” said Buckley. “I just know, in my heart of hearts, if we build it they will come, and I truly believe that’s true.”

Five years ago, selectmen asked residents to approve an extensive water and sewage project, which they believe will attract business to the area.

But a lack of initial interest, said Vice Chairman Leon Kenison, caused the project to stall.

“As part of the discussion the evening of that bond issue approval, I, for one, said we needed a certain minimum participation before we could really begin to feasibly operate both physically and financially,” said Kenison, who noted that hired consultants estimated the town needed to guarantee roughly 100,000 gallons of water flow to make the project work.

The problem, he said, is that five years later, no business large enough to provide that kind of output has come into the area, and all the development currently in place, combined, doesn’t come close to filling the required volume.

Kenison did note, however, that there is a business firm currently in Bow that has purchased additional land and hopes to expand in the future, though he is unsure if it will be enough to fill the quota. Kenison admitted that the town has put itself into a bit of a dilemma.

“Since 2002 Town Meeting, a lot of us have realized that it is the nature of development that most people that are brokers and developers won’t even give us a sideways glance if we don’t have a proper water and sewage system in place, so unless we get a little bolder, I’m not sure if we’ll ever get going,” he said.

Buckley compared the financial impact of the project to the last big investment Bow made, the new high school in the early 1990s.

“The immediate impact is you’re going to have this $12.5 million impact against the tax base, so we’re obviously going to be paying off principal and interest over the life of the bonds, but I truly believe we’re going to see a long-term return on this investment,” said Buckley.

“The water and sewage system isn’t just a capital infrastructure system we’re going to pay for no matter what and not see any long-term benefit. If you build a water and sewage system, it’s going to bring commercial and industrial development that will help generate a tax base that will lesson the impact on our residential areas.”
Kenison agreed the risk may be worth the price.

“There is no question that for the first five to eight years, all taxpayers in Bow will have a certain amount of participation in paying for that bond, but hopefully, as more developers come on board, the bond will be paid for by those properties more than those of a residential area.”

Kenison said, if residents vote to support the petitioned warrant article, it will send a clear message to himself and fellow selectmen.

“I think that would provoke discussion, and if it passes, I think the board should see it as a signal that the voters want us to go ahead,” he said. “I would certainly feel a moral obligation to do so.”

Many of the pieces, said Kenison, are already in place, including roughly 90 percent of the design work and the acquisition of most of the easements.

He added that the town would likely adopt a strategy of breaking the project into four or five smaller contracts to promote competition among contractors and give the board  the ability to eliminate certain aspects of the original plan.

The town will likely wait until winter to negotiate, said Kenison, as December through March is when firms are most eager to lock in contracts.

Should the town decide to go forward with the project, Kenison added that he will suggest a tax increment financing (TIF) district. A TIF district uses a bond to build the infrastructure to attract needed to attract new business to town. Tax revenue raised from the new businesses is used to pay off the bond and, depending on the split, is often used to immediately offset the tax burden on residential properties.