City Council approves applying for grant to look into SID for south Havre

Havre City Council has approved applying for a grant to help some people in south Havre to find out what it would cost to rehabilitate their neighborhoods.

The council unanimously approved at its last meeting applying for a Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Renewable Resources Grant, and to provide any required matching funds, to pay for a preliminary engineering report on what is required to repair streets, curbs and gutters and water infrastructure in the area including Bullhook Boulevard and Heritage Drive and connected streets.

Residents of the area Matt Ladenburg and Terry Lilletvedt, herself a former Havre City Council member, presented the proposal.

The two said the study would be the first step in looking into creating a special improvement district to pay for repairs.

Ladenburg said actually creating an SID, or even moving forward with the process, is still a long way out.

"We're not even thinking about an SID at this point in time," he said. "An SID is just a pie in the sky right now."

For an SID, residents of the area would vote on whether to create an SID with a majority needed to create the district.

If the SID is created, the city generally would take out a low-interest loan, such as selling bonds or taking a state loan, to pay for a project and make a small tax increase on properties in the district to make the payments on the loan. Once the loan is paid off, the increases can be removed.

Ladenberg said until the preliminary engineering study is done, what needs to be repaired or replaced and how much it will cost is unknown.

He said the study should provide several alternatives as to what projects could be done, and the neighborhood could then decide what to move forward with.

"Whether it's the Cadillac plan where we just put everything in, all the new pavement and curbs and gutters and all that stuff, or is it just a scaled down plan that maybe the community can (better) afford," he said.

Lilletvedt said they have been looking into the idea for some time, adding that she was passionate about improving streets and sidewalks while she was on the council and she still is.

She said many people from the neighborhoods and from outside the area have driven on Bullhook and Heritage.

"You know how bad (those streets are)," she said.

She said the idea is to get the engineering report completed, then to have people from each neighborhood go to their neighbors to talk about the report, what can be done and how an SID would work.

"Our problem is, right now, that we need to, to even start really to go to our neighbors and say, 'Are you interested? Do you want to have an SID?' we have to have a general idea of how much it's going to cost," Lilletvedt said.

Lilletvedt and Ladenberg said Bear Paw Development Corp. helped them apply to the Montana Coal Endowment Plan program, but they were denied.

Havre Public Works Director Trevor Mork suggested, since it includes looking at stormwater drainage systems, applying for the DNRC Renewable Resources Grant.

Havre city officials have repeatedly discussed in the past decade how Havre used to have multiple SIDs created to make improvements in neighborhoods, and that those districts are the typical method for doing work on lighting, streets and sidewalks, water infrastructure, and so on in neighborhoods.

No SIDs are in effect in Havre right now.

Lilletvedt said if they get the grant to do the engineering, then they need to look more into how SIDs work and start talking to their neighbors about creating a district.

"So, we're just really in the process of trying to get a bid to get an idea of cost, then go to our neighbors and work on an SID committee," she said. "And, we hope that, if we're successful, that it might be a blueprint for other neighborhoods to do the same."