MEMORANDUM 04-87

To: Walt Wrede, City Manager

From: Carey S. Meyer, Public Works Director

Date: June 8, 2004

Subject: Spaghetti Water and Sewer Lines

Policy Affirmation

HISTORY

Homer City Code states that no water or sewer service shall be installed to properties which do not have a mainline directly adjacent to it except where no other mainline will be constructed to service the property. The City has granted permission for quite a number of “spaghetti line” service extensions over the years. This Department has always frowned on these types of extensions, but some have been granted at times due to political pressures and various extenuating circumstances.

The gray area surrounding the criteria for approving a spaghetti line request continues to change and requests are being received on a more frequent basis.

Some of the problems associated with approving spaghetti lines are:

If one is approved at the end of a mainline, the adjacent neighbor(s) could request a similar service extension – at what point is the answer “no” ?

Spaghetti water lines can’t provide for fire hydrants and fire protection. Spaghetti sewer lines are not sized to serve any other development that occurs later.

The cost to extend water pipe is not in the size of the pipe, but in the trenching and disruption to surface improvements. Spaghetti lines cost the owner twice; once to trench in the “temporary” spaghetti line service and again when it is done “right”.

Future extensions of a mainline that has spaghetti lines in the path of the mainline extension are problematic during construction. It is difficult to maintain the service while extending the water main since the service may be in the path of the mainline. And the time involved in flushing and disinfecting the new water main prior to reconnecting the service into the new main compounds the issue of maintaining service to the lot during construction.

Spaghetti line requests take a considerable amount of staff time in reviewing, approving/denying, drawing up agreements, recording documents, and addressing their existence during design and construction of future mainline extensions.

Likely, the biggest problem is the fact that once a property is served by a spaghetti line, all of the owner’s motivation is removed to initiate, or be a part of extending the mainline to properly service the property, or surrounding properties. There is a recent example of this scenario where a past spaghetti service to a lot in the Saltwater Drive LID prevented the passing of the LID. The property owner had the service they needed, so there was no motivation to vote in favor of the petition. Even if legal language could be part of a spaghetti line agreement that would require a property owner to vote in favor of a proposed LID, allowing a spaghetti line removes any motivation for that property owner to otherwise be the initiator of a mainline extension.

RECOMMENDATION

In an effort to best serve the interests of the community as a whole, water and sewer spaghetti line approvals should be strictly limited to the language of HCC 13.24.040 f. (sewer) and 13.28.030 f. (water) which states, “Service lines may not be installed to property which does not have a main directly adjacent to it except when no other main line will be constructed to service the property and then only with the permission of the Public Works Director”.

A property having “a main directly adjacent to it” is interpreted as having the main adjacent to the entire frontage of the property. The exception would only apply when, in the opinion of the Public Works Director, the main will never be extended to serve property beyond the property requesting service. In this case, the main will only be required to be extended across the first 10 feet of the frontage of the property.

(Note: One could argue that no action is necessary since the code addresses this issue already. But spaghetti line requests have been approved for various reasons for decades. I believe it would be beneficial to obtain administrative concurrence on holding to the policy as stated above.)