Business owners in West Whiteland will soon receive letters telling them what portion each would pay of a proposed $4.5 million to $5 million road improvement project.
The letters are expected to be mailed the second week of March, and they will give the date of a hearing by the township supervisors to discuss the tax assessments. The hearing is tentatively scheduled for mid-April.
The township's Highway Network Improvement Committee met Wednesday night to work further on the letter's wording.
Mark Zehner, the Philadelphia lawyer drafting the letter, said later that if the supervisors pass an ordinance creating the right to assess businesses for road improvements, there would be a 45-day period for public comment before it would become effective.
Michael Drummond, committee vice chairman, said that commercial, industrial and retail businesses in the township would be assessed, except in certain exceptions such as vacant lots zoned for business or lots zoned for business but used for other purposes.
Michael Wolf, a Philadelphia investment banker working as a consultant to the committee, said that the bond payment would be stretched to about 25 years to keep debt service at no more than $600,000 total per year.
West Whiteland businesses were assessed at a total of about $21 million in the last property-tax assessment.
The ordinance would be needed to create a special tax-assessment group for businessess, permitted under State Act 47, passed in 1985.
Drummond said the goal would be to lower each business' individual contribution for several years, then add additional projects as the pool of assessed properties grows, never going over the first year's road-tax bill for the original businesses.
The committee is considering a number of road projects, some to be paid for with funds from developers whose projects will abut the affected sections of roadway.
One of the largest projects proposed is Route 30. The assessed businesses would finance improvement of the highway from Ship Road to Route 100 and a portion east of Whitford Road.
Private developers would finance widening and repair of the remainder of Route 30 between the Exton Bypass and Springdale Road.
