Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to acquire 9.4 acres of property on Ridge Avenue to relocate the borough's public works department there.
The borough needs to move public works, because a company wants to buy the parcel where the department is currently located (known as the "borough sheds") on the 400 block of South Front Street.
The company, JG Environmental, which already leases the borough's wastewater treatment plant, wants to buy the parcel to expand its operation.
The borough plans to spend $1,350,000 for the Ridge Avenue property (several parcels) to move public works there. Funds for the purchase will come from the borough's Wells Fargo money market account. The account will theoretically be reimbursed with revenue from the sale to JG Environmental and sell-offs of the former Columbia #1 firehouse (currently leased to KT Graham), 26 acres of the borough farm on Blue Lane, and excess acreage (about 5 acres) from the Ridge Avenue parcels. In short, reimbursing the account is contingent upon those sales.
Initially, the plan was to move public works to Blue Lane, but it was deemed too costly - at around $5 million, according to Council President Heather Zink. The estimate for relocating to Ridge Avenue and subsequent clean-up and renovation of an abandoned factory will be about $2 million, according to Borough Manager Mark Stivers.
But there's a glitch. The property is accessible only by crossing private land - specifically, over a small bridge across Shawnee Run. The borough would need to buy a piece of a private tract (or tracts) to create access sufficient for its purposes. No price purchase price was mentioned at the meeting.
Resident Frank Doutrich questioned Mayor Leo Lutz's assurance that the move wouldn't entail any expense to taxpayers, since the assets the borough is selling were originally paid for with tax dollars.
Doutrich also asked if environmental testing had been done on the property. Stivers said the parcel is under Act 2 remediation, and there are test wells in place that are monitored by the DEP.
According to the Pennsylvania DEP website:
"The Land Recycling Program (Act 2) establishes environmental remediation standards for cleanups related to specific environmental laws. Remediation and the resulting liability relief provided by Act 2 is specific to the contamination identified at each specific site or sites."
Council voted to approve an agreement of sale, with Councilman Eric Kauffman casting the lone no vote. Kauffman was concerned that the purchase price did not include costs of obtaining access.
More details on the purchase can be found on Columbia Spy's previous post HERE.
