Larkfield sewer expansion provides emotional victory for rebuilding fire survivors

To hearty applause and tears of joy from grateful survivors of the October wildfires, Sonoma County leaders this week advanced their first major infrastructure project designed to improve a devastated neighborhood north of Santa Rosa.

County supervisors unanimously authorized a financing plan that will bring sewer service into a section of Larkfield where dozens of homes were connected to septic systems before they burned down.

The voluntary program is seen by supporters as a way to enhance rebuilt homes there, freeing residents from having to deal with problems related to aging septic systems and possibly allowing them to expand their new homes, add a granny unit or reconfigure their property in a different way.

“The first real example of us building better is right here before us,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman James Gore, who represents Larkfield. “I really hope this snowballs in a positive way to a lot more.”

The project’s advancement proved to be an emotional milestone for a group of fire-affected residents who have spent months navigating a taxing and complicated rebuilding process.

“A lot of us are really struggling,” said Gena Jacob, whose home in the Larkfield Estates subdivision burned down. “We want to stay committed to our rebuild. There’s a lot of setbacks. We don’t have a lot of wins. ... It just gives you more momentum and wind beneath your wings to just continue fighting through all the obstacles that we have in rebuilding.”

When it was first proposed several months ago, the sewer plan was met with stiff resistance from critics who worried they would be forced to participate in a costly program against their will or that it would open the door to more development in their neighborhood than they were comfortable with, among other concerns.

But county officials kept tweaking the program, agreeing to make it entirely voluntary.

No one who wants to stay on septic will be required to connect to the newly extended sewer, even when they sell their homes, according to the Sonoma County Water Agency, which is managing the project.

Mary Allen, who also lost her Larkfield Estates home in the Tubbs fire, spoke strongly in support of the sewer program, drawing on a lot of personal expertise as a septic inspector for the county. She said the sewer would be more sanitary, allow homeowners to expand without undertaking costly septic upgrades and spare them the headache of dealing with a decades-old wastewater system.

“I think the people that were opposing it really had no idea (of) the costs and that it could fail at any moment with no warning to them,” Allen said.

Numerous properties in the Larkfield area are already connected to sewer, but a swath of homes, most of them southeast of Old Redwood Highway and Mark West Springs Road, were still on septic before the firestorm destroyed them. To extend the existing sewer lines in the area, homeowners will have to pay construction costs, connection fees and annual service charges.

The construction costs - about $45,000 per property - will be financed through a loan, but payments won’t be due for 10 years, and no interest will accrue in the meantime. Once due, annual payments are expected to be about $2,750 per year.

Homeowners who connect also will have to pay connection fees, which are currently about $11,700 per single-family home for properties in the area. Loan payments to cover those fees are expected to total about $750 annually starting in 2020.

Finally, sewer-connected homes also will owe annual service charges, which are currently about $900 for that area and increase a little bit each year.

“It’s an extremely attractive financing program we’re putting before them,” said Mike Thompson, an assistant general manager of the Water Agency, at Tuesday’s meeting. Residents who choose to hook up later will have to pay higher connection fees and construction costs, so the agency was trying to encourage people to join as soon as possible.

The program was met with broad support from supervisors, who serve as directors of the Water Agency.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins called the financing plan a “great model,” a version of which she said might be explored for her west county district where residents and county officials have discussed wastewater treatment improvements for decades.

“I’m hopeful that we can replicate this kind of model, or obviously amend it as necessary, to address the issues that we know we have in the lower Russian River,” Hopkins said.

After all five supervisors voted in favor of the program, the Larkfield contingent that came to show their support burst into applause. Some shed tears in the aftermath, which included a celebratory photo with the board.

“It feels like, OK, now I’m in control of how I can rebuild,” Jacob said.

The Water Agency now has authorization to complete a competitive selection process it already launched to choose a firm to design the sewer system.

The agency hopes to have the expanded sewer built by the end of next year or early 2020 - possibly before many of the homes that plan to connect to it have been finished, according to Thompson.