With a lot going on both in the news blog and personally, I was generally aware some changes were underway in plans for a Geist Conservancy District, but had not had the chance to write about it. Reporter John Tuohy of the Indianapolis Star wrote a story posted online November 3rd, about those changes. The changes are major.
Geist Lake, a reservoir for Citizens Water Utility, has been around for a long time as a source of water for the area. As with any body of water used the way Geist is used, there is maintenance needed and expensive work on an ongoing basis to keep the lake healthy.
Keeping the lake healthy costs money. As a result, a conservancy district was proposed to raise the money needed to keep Geist in shape. The big question was who would be paying for that expensive work.
The original plan was to have roughly 1,000 homes on the lake and about 3,500 in an adjacent neighborhood pay the costs of maintaining Geist. That ran into some legal obstacles, requiring those organizing the conservancy district to start from scratch in gathering signatures from 30% of the homeowners.
As Tuohy reports, those working on the conservancy district have faced opposition from residents in the adjoining neighborhood and know any future steps will be opposed by that group of homeowners.
It appears, based on a Facebook page post by those behind the conservancy district, that the 3.500 adjacent homes will no longer be a part of the conservancy district, meaning they will not be required to pay for the maintenance of the lake.
The big question is whether the roughly 1,000 homeowners directly located on Geist Reservoir will be able to raise the annual money needed for this work, which Tuohy reports could be around $1.5 million a year.
The future of Geist is very much tied to Fishers, because the city is constructing a major park facility on the lake, the only public space available on the reservoir.
I will be watching for any further developments on the issue of Geist’s proposed conservancy district.
How much of the cost of maintaining the reservoir will be shifted to the City now that there is a park there as well?
Unlikely, but no one knows for certain because the conservancy district is not yet in place.
Let the money at the launching ramp pay for the upkeep of the lake. The launch ramp is a cash cow for the water company. They need to take that money and return it to the lake. It will repay them tenfold.
The launch ramp is a private ownership- no $$ collected from Ramp fees goes towards the lake.
I remember when you interviewed me 4.5 years ago as the leader of the anti CD/tax fight. You were not very optimistic qbout our chances to defeat the GLC and the political machine they had built to push the CD on 5000 area homeowners. In any event I wanted to thank you for that interview, it gave me a lot of strength to ultimately win in the end