Site developer to handle water, sewer, village says

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Neddo Street will be seeing 14 new homes soon within the village. The homes will be a net zero energy cost and run on renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal energy.

A net-zero energy development proposed to the Whitehall Village Board in July has led to questions about proper water sources and sewer plant connections for the Neddo Street project. Village Department of Public Works foreman Steve Brock said it will be on the shoulders of the site developers.

“The village won’t have any responsibility in making sure that there is proper water and sewer connections. The company that’s going to be building the structures is going to have to figure that out,” he said.

With village water and sewer pumps already having many users, some pump stations have been overwhelmed and are being addressed at monthly DPW committee meetings. Brock said that it was also just a proposal by Nick Schwartz of CHA Consulting in July.

“They just proposed it to the board in July,” he said.

Schwartz presented village board members with a 14-parcel subdivision for village residents on Neddo Street. He said they would be net-zero energy homes and would be working to make something respectful to the environment.

After looking at the land, 30 of the 70 acres are being considered developable and using an 8,000-square-foot lot count would leave them with 14 developable sites for the village and will be consistent with the flat areas that the land already has.

“I know we have a lot of steps to go through but we’re just thinking down the road a little bit of what that would mean to Whitehall,” Schwartz said at the July meeting.

There is currently a state Department of Environmental Conservation constraint on the village sewer system. Mayor Julie Eagan said that it’s almost at capacity a good portion of the time to begin with.

“It’s at capacity for a couple of different reasons with one being the aging of the system. Our pump stations are pumping a lot of surface water, there’s encroachment from storm drain runoff,” she said.

“We’ve been trying to get a handle on these things.”

Eagan said she is all for adding more homes to the community and welcomes the idea of energy-saving homes being built in the village.

“It’s hard to get new construction in the village because there’s not a lot of available space so it’s great. It’s great for the tax base, it’s great for the village in the sense of it growing and bringing in more people,” she said.