Two Hillsdale residents living in potential special assessment districts are collecting signatures to stop road repairs from going forward.
The City of Hillsdale uses SADs to fund road repairs. Residents in an SAD are charged up to $5,000 each for repairs on their road. The council voted Sept. 18 to move forward with planning SADs on Willow Street from Oak Street to Logan Street, South Street from M-99 to South Norwood Avenue, and Lake Street from Willow Street to East Carleton Road. Residents of Barry Street successfully petitioned against an SAD on their street earlier this year.
Eric Coykendall, announced at the Nov. 3 city council meeting that he is collecting signatures from the 45 homeowners on his section of South Street. If more than 50% of homeowners object to the SADs in writing, the improvements cannot go forward unless seven councilmembers vote for it, according to Coykendall’s remarks during the meeting.
Coykendall said he’s collected 15 signatures, and he’s confident he will be able to collect enough to get to more than 50%.
“South Street gets used for a lot of traffic, a lot of school buses,” Coykendall said. “There are a lot of folks using it besides us, and we think that the way that the special assessment district is done, if it’s done at all, should reflect that reality.”
Coykendall said residents still want road repairs but at a lower cost.
“The petition is not a straight objection to the whole assessment district because I think many of my neighbors, like me, are afraid that if we object to all of the special assessments, that we won’t get a new road,” Coykendall said. “And we desperately need a new road.”
Coykendall said the city council should compromise with the residents of South Street in the SAD and cap the cost at $2,800 per resident.
Jill Hardway, who lives on Oak Street, said at the meeting she has already collected 19 signatures from Oak Street residents and will also be able to get the necessary number of signatures.
“What we’re really looking at is restoration work necessitated by the city’s failure to perform basic maintenance that should have been funded through our general tax revenues all along,” Hardway said.
Jonathan Meckel ’21, a Hillsdale alumnus and legislative director for Rep. Jennifer Wortz R-Quincy, who represents Hillsdale, in the Michigan House of Representatives, told the city council the recently passed New Roads Plan will allocate about $400,000 to fund roads in Hillsdale which would cover the cost of road repairs.
“The state government is coming in and essentially cutting you a check for close to the amount, or even more than the amount, that you actually need to get from residents,” Meckel said. “These are our tax dollars that should have been going to roads the entire time.”
