HILLSDALE — Despite concerted efforts to combine grants, special assessment districts, the city’s road millage and Board of Public Utility projects to tackle the city of Hillsdale’s crumbling infrastructure, the city’s engineer has a grim outlook for the future if additional funding is not made available.
The Hillsdale City Council brought back to the table a previously failed motion to establish a special assessment district for Arch Avenue, Monroe Street and Barry Street in September with plans for infrastructure work in those areas in 2025.
Despite using special assessment districts for several years to tackle road work (at a cost of $5,000 per parcel of land in the district per taxpayer), the council has grown cautious of approving SADs with the downturn of the economy.
Councilman Rob Socha said he voted against the proposal in September because he had questions that were not answered.
City Engineer Kristin Bauer and City Manager David Mackie moved to explain Hillsdale’s road grades Oct. 7 and said that despite Hillsdale having over 10 miles of roadway in good condition in 2020, that number has dropped to around six miles of good roadways since then.
Part of this, Bauer explained, is because several miles of roadway were chip sealed in 2020 bringing those road grades up but chip sealing is only a temporary solution that lasts four-to-five years.
“Our streets are degrading faster than we’re investing in them,” Mackie said.
“Even with all of the investment we’ve made from 2020 to now we’ve just slowed the rate of degradation,” Kristin Bauer said. “75-percent of these roads are in failing condition. We’re making that better, but we’re still losing ground because of the amount of funding we have. We need more money to do more work to turn that trend upwards. We’re making headway, just very slowly.”
The city is averaging around a mile of road work every year but has 24 miles of failed roads; a mile of road reconstruction costs around $1 million including curb work, driveway approaches, water, storm sewer and sanitary sewer lines.
“If we take special assessments out, it would decline our roads even faster,” Mackie said. “The only solution to this problem is additional revenues into our street fund.”
Bauer said the lack of action by previous councils in a prolonged “kick the can down the road” approach to infrastructure work led Hillsdale to where it is currently at.
The Hillsdale City Council’s top goal remains roadwork and an ongoing project spanning much of the 3rd Ward at a cost of $6 million is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
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Despite opposition from Mayor Adam Stockford, Councilman Joshua Paladino and Councilwoman Cindy Pratt, the council ultimately passed the once failed proposal for a special assessment district for Arch Avenue, Monroe Street and Barry Street Oct. 7 paving the way for engineering plans and bidding on the projects in January.
The city has received a federal grant to assist with the project on Arch Avenue.
Hillsdale’s roads have been described by many as deplorable and third-worldly.
— Contact Reporter Corey Murray at cmurray@hillsdale.net or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @cmurrayHDN.