Vineyards gets boost from water pump

A parched and long-stalled subdivision, The Vineyards at Anderson, may soon have some life-giving water after a five-way agreement to build a water-pumping, storage and distribution system was recently cobbled together by City of Anderson officials.

Developer Buz Loring, president of Three Seasons Development, Inc., and the driving force behind the agreement due to his adjacent 175-unit single-family Pleasant Hills Subdivision, has already commenced construction on the distribution element of the project, City Manager Scott Morgan reported Wednesday, April 15, just one day after the five-member council unanimously signed off on the agreement with Loring, Fred Bergstrom of Bergstrom Enterprises, Inc., Vineyards' president Vern Palmer and Robert Possehl, vice president of US Acquisition, LLC.

The more than $1 million agreement also contains a reimbursement plan involving several property owners including Hank Willms and Catherine Locke.

The City of Anderson's share of the costs is estimated at $416,592, although that figure does not include project inspection costs, Morgan noted.

"Essentially, the city's share of the funding is the same as before, except we are being asked to put up our share in cash," Morgan explained to council members on Tuesday, April 14.

It does, however, release the city from any liability associated with the Vineyards subdivision's water problems that essentially halted work on 12 partially completed houses and any further development on the site until a potable water supply could be found.

The latest agreement was the second solution to the problem.

A previous agreement reached June 17, 2008, fell apart Aug. 21, 2008, when Willms and Locke withdrew their combined one-third share - $314,000 - after claiming that they had not been provided with detailed estimates of the project's costs by Loring.

The new agreement contains estimates and engineering requirements forecasted by PACE Civil Engineering, Morgan noted, adding, "We are confident in their estimates."

Last year, after the initial agreement broke down, Bergstrom Enterprises, doing business as Northwest Homes, and Palmer Homes, which together own 20 of the proposed 317 single-family lots in The Vineyards at Anderson subdivision, had threatened to sue Willms, the City of Anderson and anyone else involved in the subdivision.

The new agreement, just like the first one, calls for construction of a southwest booster pump station powerful enough to supply potable water for up to 430 households.

The resulting pipes and booster pumps will lift water nearly 700 feet from the city's existing Anderson Heights reservoir, states a report prepared by PACE Civil, Inc..

In the reimbursement agreement, purchasers of future lots in the Vineyards subdivision will reimburse Bergstrom Enterprises, Inc., and US Acquisition, on behalf of Vineyards at Anderson, Inc., the sum of $5,700 per unit since those two entities put up the funds to help build the booster pump station and water lines, Morgan noted.

"We estimate 40 or 50 feet (of pipeline) was laid today," Loring told members of the Anderson City Council on Tuesday, after they had approved the agreement. "We will be at the top of the hill by the end of the week," he added.