The Camp Verde Town Council approved a $1.2 million loan from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona at its meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 20.
The loan will be used to fund design and engineering costs for 7 miles of gravity sewer main line along the State Route 260 corridor, which will also include 2.6 miles of sewer force main, 4 to 5 miles of smaller sewer collection mains, one or two major sewer lift stations, and several hundred tap and sewer stub locations along the highway corridor.
This is the latest of many actions that the town has engaged with in recent years with the intention of encouraging commercial and residential development along the State Route 260 corridor.
In order to allow for the execution of the resolution in the next 30 days, the council had to declare an emergency. The vote for an emergency resolution had to be at least 6-1, which was not a problem since it was approved unanimously.
The loan is set up for five years, though Camp Verde Finance Director Mike Showers suggests that the town will not be on the hook for paying it back, as it will be assumed by a planned special tax district for the relevant area, meaning that the payments will be made by future property owners of the State Route 260 corridor.
This loan is only for the design and engineering, with the full construction of wastewater infrastructure to the area expected to come in a future loan.
“The expected idea is that a special district will be formed,” Showers said. “That special district will take on the construction loan for putting in the sewer line, and this loan, this $1.2 million, will completely and fully wrap into the construction loan, and the town will not pay a dime of the principle at least, and very possibly might even get any interest we pay in the interim reimbursed back to us, depending on that agreement.”
According to Town Manager Russ Martin, if a special district is not formed by the time the loan is due, the town would look at refinancing based on current interest rates until the special district is created.
“The long term is that at some point, unless you believe you’re never going to do it, you’re going to get this money back, and it’s going to be paid back with refunding of that construction loan at the time,” Martin said.
