The Hinsdale Village Board plans to create a special service area to generate an additional $2 million in property tax revenue to reconstruct Sixth Street with bricks.
A public hearing on the proposed SSA, which is comprised of 38 properties that have an address on or that directly abut Sixth Street between Garfield Avenue and County Line Road, will be held Dec. 17.
The village must wait 60 days after the hearing to establish the SSA. If 51 percent of registered voters and 51 percent of owners in the proposed SSA object by Feb. 18, the village cannot create it.
Village officials at this point have yet to put the project out to bid. They plan to do so in January, with bid results expected in mid-February.
“If the bids come in slightly higher than that, the village will pick up the difference,” Village President Tom Cauley said.
The possibility also exists that bids could come in lower or supplemental funding could be secured.
“One of the benefits to residents is if you bring that number down from $2 million, there’s the possibility for the village to internally finance it rather than go to a bonding agency,” Cauley said, which would eliminate the 7 percent interest rate on the debt. “My hope is by the time we get to the public hearing on Dec. 17 ... we will be at a much lower number.”
A group of residents has been working to save the four-block stretch of brick street since the village first announced plans to reconstruct it mostly in asphalt, with brick intersections, after water and sewer mains are replaced. That group selected the properties for the proposed SSA.
“The resident group came up with the 38 properties based not on ‘Do you have a Sixth Street address’ or ‘Do you have a driveway on Sixth Street? but rather ‘Do you own private property that abuts Sixth Street?’ ” said Bill Haarlow, a Sixth Street resident and former trustee who has been leading the campaign to preserve the bricks.
Haarlow said he expects there will be people who will oppose the SSA, either because they don’t have a driveway on Sixth Street or believe the village should pick up the entire cost.
“If 51 percent of the people don’t want it, it won’t go forward,” Cauley said. “We all understand that.”
