Having to pay upwards of $35,000 per household to be connected to a new sewer system may not seem like a prudent financial decision for many residents of Southeast 20th Street in Sammamish.

But that figure will rise by about 30 percent if the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District does not get the necessary public support to install the sewer system this summer.

It is a time when a competitive bidding climate, school holidays and city projects on the same street has aligned all the stars for the project to go ahead.

So says the water and sewer district’s General Manager Ron Little, who on Tuesday met with residents of Southeast 20th, between 212th and 228th avenues, in a bid to convince them of the savings that will result from beginning the project as soon as possible.

But in order to do that, the district needs the commitment of about half of the 74 property owners in the area, each of which will pay between $35,000 and $60,000, depending on property size, to be connected.

Properties in this area are currently served by their own septic systems.

Typically, with neighborhood sewer projects like this one, if the agency in charge, be it a city or a sewer district, gets more than 50 percent of the residents to agree to the project, then all households in the area have to pay their assessment, regardless of whether they want to be connected.

In their eagerness to get the work done, the Sammamish district has decided that only those in favor of the project and who want to be connected will pay their assessment.

“We’ll pay for the rest of the project,” Little said. “Those who are not interested in connecting to the sewer system, or don’t want to pay the assessment, won’t have to.”

Getting half of the property owners to sign up and pay their assessment would fund somewhere around $1.5 million of the $2.5 million project. Households that chose to be connected later on, will pay their assessment at that time.

Little said that current circumstances represented an “opportunity that we don’t want to miss – even if we don’t get the community support.”

“We are letting the minority slide for a while,” he said.

The circumstances to which he refers are a competitive bidding climate which, with project work hard to come by, has seen contractors submitting bids to do the work well below engineers’ estimates.

On June 10 the district received seven bids for the sewer project, the three lowest of which were just over $2 million. The low bidder was Ceccanti, Inc., with a bid of $2,000,565.

The other issue of some urgency is that in the fall the City of Sammamish will begin sidewalk and curbing work on the same stretch of road, to improve pedestrian and bicycle facilities.

Should the sewer district project be delayed beyond this summer, then they will have to dig up and replace brand new sidewalks, an inconvenience that would add about 30 percent to the cost of the sewer project.

The city has offered that if the sewer district can install the sewer this summer, the city will complete the necessary road overlay, which would otherwise be the responsibility of the sewer district.

The absence of school bus traffic along 20th during the summer is also seen as a time-constrained bonus.

“It’s time to fish or cut bait,” Little said.

Unfortunately, some residents are interested in doing neither, with the best efforts of signature gatherers able to get only about 30 percent of households to commit.

The target is 50 percent, and Little hopes to reach that number following the public meeting on Tuesday and one to be held July 6, at the water and sewer district offices at 1510 228th Avenue SE.

What to do, though, if the district manages to get the commitment of only 30 or 35 percent of the residents?

“Then that is something the board is going to have to think about,” Little said. “The community is facing a 30 percent increase in the cost of the project if we do it later.”

This means a proportionate increase in the fee to connect to the system.

Little believes that the reluctance of property owners to commit to connecting is mostly about having to pay the assessment.

“Historically, opposition to a new sewer system is people saying, “oh, we are against sewers because sewers are going to make growth,’” he said. “But we haven’t heard a lot of that with this project.”

For more on the 20th Street Sewer Project, go to www.sammplat.wa.org/SE20thSewer.