Consultant's report says Springfield must spend millions more to maintain infrastructure

After reviewing Springfield's revenues and tax base, a consulting firm working with the city warns that additional investment in new and existing infrastructure is needed.

Urban3, along with urban planning firm Multistudio, has been tasked with leading an effort to update city code to align with the Forward SGF comprehensive plan. Ahead of a public presentation on the costs of development and their impacts on the fiscal sustainability of the city Thursday night at the Springfield Art Museum, Phillip Walters, Urban3 project manager, shared the findings at a media preview.

Current infrastructure is aging, in need of investment

Walters compared a city to a corporation where residents are both owners and customers since infrastructure that Springfieldians use comes out of city coffers — and ultimately citizens' pockets.

Most roads in Springfield were built in the 1960s through 1980s, meaning the maintenance work and the need to rebuild roads that were built in the 1970s is quickly approaching and will require more work in the future. Springfield has 1,900 lane miles of roads — by comparison, the entire length of Route 66 stretches 2,400 miles. This comes down to 26 feet of road to be maintained per person living in Springfield.

"As a community you've got to keep paying for these things," Walters said.

The city currently spends about $48 million annually on road maintenance, but the amount needed to keep roads at the level of quality acceptable to most people is almost double that, at $80 million.

In addition to roads, Springfield has miles and miles of stormwater and wastewater infrastructure. Combined, these pipes stretch 3,000 miles. The current wastewater maintenance investment of $61 million a year is close to the $77 million total needed every year, in part because wastewater is operated as a utility with service charges. Stormwater maintenance, meanwhile, needs $15 million, more than double the current $6 million a year that is budgeted, according to Urban3 findings.

"You don't have to spend this tomorrow, some of these pipes are so new that they're not gonna get to that rebuild (phase) for another 20, 30, 40 years," Walters said. "But that is sort of the stable mature cost of the system you already have."

In the overall city budget, wastewater makes up 13% of costs and roads 9%. Springfield relies heavily on sales taxes for revenue, yet only a small portion of these revenues go to Public Works and the wastewater system. Walters said in total, city infrastructure needs an additional $64 million annually to maintain the systems serving the city at the desired quality.

Stormwater infrastructure carries about 14 billion gallons of runoff each year. Walters suggested that to reduce the cost of maintenance and upkeep of this system, trees can provide a solution. Trees can be a way to extend pervious areas and intercept water above ground when it rains and absorb it below groundm, reducing the strain on the pipes and extending their lifetime. While trees cost money, the benefit outweighs that price — it's much cheaper than pipe work, he said, in addition to adding to the green spaces of the city.

Making money to pay for infrastructure

At Urban3's first part of the Forward SGF presentation in November, Joe Minicozzi focused on the value of development per acre it uses. Downtown and Historic Commercial Street were examples of mixed-use development that has the most value for Springfield, compared to sprawling shopping centers and malls.

Infrastructure is up to the city to pay for, but in order to make money to support that infrastructure, Minicozzi pointed to the need to invest in and promote developments that are the most valuable and productive for the city. Further expansion will only continue to drive those costs up with less revenue coming in per acre.

"There's more than one way you could address this potential shortfall, and one of them is to think a little bit differently about simply the way you choose to use your land and what that actually does to your infrastructure systems," Walters said.

When it comes to zoning, unsurprisingly Walters said residentially zoned areas bring in the least amount of revenue. This is because local property taxes make up a very small portion of Springfield's revenue. When it comes to more commercial and industrial zoning areas, those zoned for mixed use bring in the most revenue and cost the least.

"There's a lot of stuff, 80% of the stuff, is not generating the revenue that it takes to cover its costs," he said noting how prominent residential zoning is in Springfield.

Applying the information in the reports

The consultants' findings offer the public and city leaders a look at the current fiscal situation in Springfield and opportunities moving forward as the city begins the code update process. The quantitative data on costs and revenues is only a part of what will be considered. Randall Whitman, principal planner with the city's Planning and Neighborhoods Team, said the qualitative data — including feedback from the public — is harder to quantify.

"The qualitative side of it is a little bit subjective, and it's an emotional characteristic. It's not a positive or negative number that shows up on our ledger," he said.

Springfield Planning & Zoning Commission will meet Thursday morning for a workshop on the development code updates. A meeting on the topic for Springfield City Council is set for Tuesday, March 5. The goal of the updates is to implement principles and policy recommendations outlined in Forward SGF and support development in the city that benefits both Springfield's fiscal health and quality of place for its residents.

More: Financial analysis of development highlights places to grow, caution for expansion

Whitman said Multistudio is anticipating having a draft of code updates sometime in April and will build on that swiftly.

"We were targeting to have a substantial completion of the code by the end of the calendar year," he said. "We recognize that there may be some things we've got to come back to next year and clean up, but we've got a very aggressive schedule."

Minicozzi will give a full presentation on the second half of the fiscal analysis to the public Thursday evening at 6-8 p.m. at the Springfield Art Museum. To view his previous presentation and learn more about the process visit www.ForwardSGF.com.

Marta Mieze covers local government at the News-Leader. Contact her with tips at mmieze@news-leader.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield infrastructure still underfunded, needs investment: Report