Village of Oregon officials are on the road to acquiring and removing all six homes from the flood-prone Florida Avenue neighborhood. And, they say, there will be no tax increase to help pay for the acquisitions.
The purchase of the last two of six homes targeted for removal from the Badfish Creek flood plain comes about 19 months after the most severe flooding that Oregon has ever experienced, in August 2007.
On Monday, the Village Board decided to take the necessary money - about $100,000 - out of the village fund balance to buy the final home slated for acquisition. It's owned by Bob and Linda McAllister, who've been residing at 370 Florida Ave. since 1991.
The McAllisters will receive about $200,000 for their home, in addition to insurance payments they've already received. About half of the purchase price is being provided by a new Dane County Flood Assistance Fund that's been added to the county's 2009 budget.
County executive Kathleen Falk and village officials held a news conference on Florida Avenue last Friday announcing that the village of Oregon would be receiving about $167,000 to use for purchasing the last two homes.
In early February, village officials announced plans to buy Kent and Amy Nimocks' home at 340 Florida Ave. using grant money from Dane County, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the village's stormwater fund. Federal, state, county and village money was used to buy the other four homes - three on Florida Avenue and one on North Burr Oak Avenue.
The village share for all six properties amounts to about $380,000. The Dane County grant totals about $160,000, and the state DNR grant is about $474,000. The village's share is about 33 percent of the total cost, according to administrator Mike Gracz. "The entire cost of doing this is about $1.1 million," he said.
Money from the stormwater fund and the fund balance that's used to buy the homes will be returned to those coffers through fees collected from future developers "as a condition of annexation," the board decided on Monday.
The Village Board discussed buying the McAllisters' home during its March 16 meeting and again Monday.
At the March 16 meeting, Trustee Jerry Bollig asked his board colleagues to "come in next week ready to make a decision" about whether to commit to buying the McAllisters' home and how to pay the village share for it.
"It would be good to give them a decision so they can plan their lives," he said.
On Monday, Bollig proposed buying the home this year using money from fund balance to pay the village share. He opposed pursuing a state trust fund loan, which was the other funding option suggested by village staff.
"I never thought we'd be in a position to handle these homes this quickly," Bollig said in reflecting on the board's actions over the past year and a half. "This board committed to getting those homes out of that flood plain."
On Tuesday, Village President Steve Staton said it was " a real relief to wake up this morning and have it be raining and think, gosh, we've purchased all six houses in that neighborhood. It's nice to think that the houses will be gone this year, and the road is there and it's part of the park."
He said the McAllisters' home will be on the same timeframe as the Nimocks' house: "We hope to close at the end of May and the first part of June."
Staton said that in August 2007, he was standing in waders on a flooded Florida Avenue and discussing the situation with Gracz. Staton said he's never dealt with flooding before, and he listened as Gracz explained what some of the village's options were. Staton said given the DNR grants that were in place at that time to purchase homes, he figured the six flooded homes could be acquired by about 2016.
"That would be if we got a grant every other year when the cycle came up," he said. "But here we are less than two years in and we've got it done. I think it's a huge plus for the community. And we were able to do it without any of it hitting the tax levy. That was a significant benefit."
Another benefit "that people might not recognize" is if there's another flood, village police officers and public works employees "won't have to put themselves in a dangerous situation to deal with it," Staton said. "We can basically block the street and be done. We don't have to go into people's homes to wake them up and that sort of thing."
Any future flooding should not have a significant affect, Staton said, because all structures will have been removed from the flood plain.
Following the board's action, Linda McAllister said she is "very grateful that they chose to go forward. It shows that there is going to be some closure in the near future. It was very hopeful and I appreciate the fact that they voted that way. Now we just kind of take it step by step."
She said the McAllisters had been in limbo until Monday night's decision. She added that she and her husband are not sure whether they'll stay in Oregon, where they've lived for the past 25 years.
"At this point, we really don't know where we're going," McAllister said. "Now that we have the board's decision, we can figure out which direction to go. It was difficult for us to make any decisions until the board decided what it was going to do."
