Hook me up

~~Water~~ more or less

POLSON - Effective today, Nov. 4, 2004, the City of Polson will formally end its six-year water moratorium and replace it with a resolution that allows no more than 30 new single three-quarter inch residential water taps in any given calendar year per development.

Ordinance No. 744, commonly known as the water moratorium, was adopted on January 5, 1998.

"It was a direct result of the Mission Bay Development," said Tony Porrazzo of Polson Water and Sewer. "We aren't going to put ourselves in that spot again, with unsafe amounts of water."

Mission Bay co-owner Tony Hinderman, who has lived in Polson since his development broke ground in 1997, says he made a deal with the City of Polson to secure 270 water hookups for the Mission Bay Development. He explained the transaction this way. "We got 270 water hookups approved. The deal was with the golf course and the city. When the City wanted to expand the golf course, they needed land so we traded. The bottom line is we didn't want to donate the land until we knew we'd get hookups. We traded for a supply of future hookups. We can go beyond 270, but all we have approved is 270. When we run out, we stand in line like everyone else."

New Ordinance No. 596 covers all possible scenarios when it comes to getting Polson city water. The 30 hookups offered per development per year in its paragraph 4 are rescinded at the City's discretion in Paragraph 5. Depending upon how you read it, the City of Polson can limit the number of hookups to 30 per development, per year. Or it can further curtail that number. Or it can increase that number. Or, based on paragraph 7, it can suspend water and sewer connection indefinitely, prior to the beginning of construction.

As Mission Bay still has a number of water hookups untapped, they are moving forward confidently with another phase in their development. That phase, named Mission Village, has City and County Planning approval.

Hinderman says that Mission Village will be less expensive to buy into than Mission Bay and will break ground in the acreage left of the Mission Bay front gate, facing Flathead Lake on Highway 35.