The Youngsville Borough and Warren County may soon be working on some collective projects.

At the July meeting of borough council, Warren County Commissioner Jeff Eggleston presented information about proposed land bank and rural roads initiatives.

The county is already moving along the path to the land bank, Eggleston said. “What a land bank does is it gives the redevelopment authority a bunch of tools to address blight and redevelopment.”

“It reduces the cost and makes the process quicker,” he said.

The county would need a partnership agreement with the borough to work on its properties.

“All this does is give you more tools to deal with a problem that everybody has,” Eggleston said. “It doesn’t cost you anything. The borough doesn’t lose any authority.”

ROADS PROGRAM

The county is also working on a Northwest Pennsylvania Rural Road Initiative.

“An enormous amount of money has been put into infrastructure grant programs,” Eggleston said. “The challenge that we always have is no one municipality has a project that is big enough to bid on federal grants.”

The grants would require only a 20% match, but the $5 million minimum gets in the way of most rural, municipal projects, he said.

By bringing multiple municipalities with needs together, the initiative could meet the program requirements.

Eggleston said the county would be sending a survey to the borough soon.

“The types of projects we’re looking for are difficult and costly, but not an emergency,” he said. “We would put a project like that in the pool with other projects to get that road or bridge rebuilt. It’s going to take a couple years to bring these projects to fruition.”

Borough council members tossed around some possible projects that need to be done, but don’t have to be done right away.

REASSESSMENT

When questioned about reassessment, Eggleston updated council on the status of that project.

“I think there will be a clear determination on how things are going to move forward within the next month,” he said.

“I wholeheartedly support reassessment,” he said. “It’s a fairness issue. It’s an equity issue.”

“There are so many tiers of it… it’s hard to go to seniors that are having trouble making their tax payment and say a commercial property just saved $80,000 to $100,000,” Eggleston said.

Council Member Troy Clawson said the lack of a current assessment is most unfair to those who don’t have the knowledge or resources to challenge their values. “It’s a hot-button issue,” he said.

He said Warren County School District could force the county’s hand. “The school district could sue (to force reassessment) at any time,” Clawson said.

“I don’t think anyone wants to see that happen,” Eggleston said.

If the situation goes to court, the court would set timelines.

The county would prefer to move forward and make sure everything is done right, Eggleston said. “If we hurry to get something done and it’s not done right, that increases the number of appeals.”

“If we’re going to do this, the goal would be to do it right,” he said. “It would be better for us to do it on our terms.”