BREMERTON — There’s been talk of annexing areas adjacent to Bremerton for years, but the cost of doing so was largely unquantified.
The City of Bremerton commissioned BERK Consulting to do just that. On July 22, the firm presented their findings to the Bremerton City Council.
The 28-page study examined four urban growth areas: Navy Yard City, Rocky Point, West Hills and Gorst.
Greg Wheeler, city council president, said that at this point, the council is in favor of annexation. If adopted, annexation could begin as early as 2016.
In 2014, the areas had a combined estimated population of 4,900 and 630 jobs.
Much of the area’s infrastructure doesn’t meet city standards and would need to be brought up to code. Sewer projects alone would cost more than $18 million.
“I think the assumption of this report is … once the city annexes those areas they’ll be substandard,” said Chal Martin, public works director. “Clearly substandard because they’re in an urban area within our urban boundaries and then therefore they’ll become eligible for grant funding.”
The projects would be done between 2016 and 2020 and would be funded by a combination of tax dollars, public grants and local improvement districts.
Assuming the areas were annexed in the near future, the study found annexation would cost the city about $193,000 in 2017. However, the study found the city would net about $536,000 in 2020 and about $256,000 in 2032.
Factored into those figures are staffing and cost impacts. The city would need to hire about 15 full-time employees — including 6.5 police officers and three firefighters — to the tune of $3.1 million.
The council appeared intent on keeping the burden of annexation away from Bremerton taxpayers.
“If we’re going to approve this annexation, I think one of the principles discussed with this council is we’re not going to burden existing taxpayers rates with the cost of annexation,” said Councilman Roy Runyon.
The city administration is crunching numbers to figure out how this might be done.
In the mean time, the council approved $10,000 for BERK to work with the county and develop information sheets to show annexation costs and benefits to residents of the areas.
