Park Sewer System

mobile home university
1

I have an older park in Florida and I would like input on some questions about the wastewater systems. The Park is a great income producer. I manage it myself and have a good handyman to assist with maintenance. However, in a few years (maybe five) I will be one of those older “pops” who want to sell and retire.

The park has a package plant for wastewater treatment that serves about half the homesites, but the other half is served by septic tanks. The septic tanks require a lot of service and maintenance, but it is quite doable for the handyman, myself, and a pumping service. A sewer line to the public wastewater treatment facility abuts the park, but I have not wanted to hook up. I do not know what the cost of a hookup would be or the cost of monthly service, but I suspect it’s not cheap.

I see the following options:

  1. Continue with the status quo and avoid the huge expense involved with any change.

2.Build a new distribution system to carry the sewage from the septic tank portion of the park to the park’s treatment plant and expand the capacity of the plant.

3.Build the new distribution system, but connect the whole Park to the public system. The downsides to using the public system are, first, the monthly charges to the residents for sewer services would go way up and take away from my ability to raise their rent and, second, in the past a hurricane has shut down the public system for a few days and its customers were then inconvenienced by backed up sewage, while my old fashioned systems continued to work well.

If I were younger, and keeping the park, I would certainly continue with my old system, but since I plan to sell in about five years I am wondering about the pros and cons of each of these options as to how they would impact on making the sale and the price I would receive. Specifically:

Should I try and sell the park “as is” and let the buyer decide whether to keep operating the high maintenance septic tanks?

If I invested in a new distribution system and expanded the park’s wastewater treatment plant, would I be able to recoup those costs in a sale?

Or, if I invested in the new distribution system and put the park on the public sewer system, would that investment be best?

I would be very appreciative for your opinions. Thank you.

2

There is zero doubt for me- public is the way to go. I own a packing plant and cost is part of the equation, for me the regulations with all of the new EPA guidelines are what burns me. We just installed a generator to run our water and sewer systems in case the electric goes out. Lets do that math- if in the middle of the winter the power goes out, and it is cold- the last thing a mobile home needs is water under pressure. We want to relive the pressure to prevent freezing… but the EPA says- fire up that power. While I and the strip mall next to me produce the same water from the same place- we are required to treat it, test it daily etc- just like a huge city, while they can just pump it out and serve it through the soda machine, pizza joint etc… On the sewer end, regulations only get steeper- again testing water, regulating output and very heavy regulations.

The value of your park is probably effected by 2 CAP points in my book- maybe more.

So I would hook my park to a public system today if I could- and I would recommend- you do the same.

my 2 cents… keep the change!

3

I am in exactly the same position and posted a similar query here awhile ago…and it really is a consideration of long term planning vs short term exit strategy…no one solution would be right for everyone, so you have to balance out your needs in running the business for profit (which ABSOLUTELY affects the CAP rate) with gambling on the municipal hook up which has an unpredictable affect on the CAP rate

for instance:

the cost of upgrading my current package plant is considerably less than the cost of my tap in fees to connect to municipal. I got a quote to rebuild the plant and bring everything up to date at a little over $110,000. a generator that would run on propane adds around 12 K to the project.

Current tap in fees are $201,600 !!!

cost of ungraded system $110,000

generator $12000

cost to operate a new system is $465 per month for a licensed operator

$125 per month for electric

$1200-1400 per year for pumping

maintenance and testing costs???

licensing fees?

cost to connect

$90,000 for lines, wet well, grinder pumps

$201,600 for tap in fees

estimated cost of electricity $125.00

no operator fees or testing costs

monthly sewer fees $2500…which would be eliminated with sub metering at my cost

and this is IF the city does not require me to install all new distribution lines to eliminate surface water infiltration

while I realize that the connection to public sewer would increase interest in the property and the selling price by a couple of hundred thousand dollars (perhaps), the cost of connecting to the sewers completely wipes out that profit and in the meantime increases my debt load and monthly overhead by a considerable amount

this park is currently on it’s own water system too, and if I am going to connect to anything, I’m thinking that I will get the biggest bang for my buck by hooking into municipal water only, in which case there are programs to help this “disadvantaged community” with the cost of connection…gets me out a liability and lowers my insurance costs too

I’ve decided to go with the rebuilt sewer plant…but I might give getting tap in fee assistance one more shot first. As a long term strategy it is always best to escape the clutches of the EPA …if you can IMO

oh, and just a little thing of mine…the term for these little sewage treatment plants is “PACKAGED or PACKAGE PLANTS” not “PACKING PLANTS” and refers to the plants originally being modular type units manufactured elsewhere and installed as a “package” on your site

many sites are not modularly built but do have concrete tanks poured on site etc, but the term is still often applied to small sewage treatment plants regardless of how they are built, The use of “Packing Plants” is a misnomer but I see I used pretty often on this site, but no where else

packing plants are where meat is processed, not sewage

regardless, I would be very interested in knowing how this goes for you

4

Of note- part of Dawns cost is her property- or part of it- is below the public sewer system. If the sewer was in the street, and she could just ‘tap’ into a system, some of the hard, upfront costs would go away, as would the monthly costs as well.

In general- most park owners frown on private utilities. So your ‘pool’ of buyers is much smaller.

5

my property isn’t 'below the public sewer system" although I can see where you would get that idea, with the mention of the grinder pumps.

around here for some reason there is a tendency for new sewer lines to be “low pressure mains” probably because of the long distances they are running these lines. I have three properties all adjacent to these low pressure mains, so almost all connections l will require pumps

The most daunting big ticket item at all properties is the tap in fees. and those are paid upfront with the local govts not wanting to waive them or apply them as assessments

the construction costs also include decommissioning the existing plants, which depending on where you are can be either a simple filling in or a total excavation and removal to a place that can accept this kind of material

running a wastewater treatment plant is not as difficult as running a community water service and does not carry nearly as much liability as the water service and getting a license to operate is easier as well

6

Thanks so much for the input. It is a lot to think about and I won’t be making changes soon.

7

Hello Dawn

May i ask how many homes you have in your park that you are considering the sewer treatment plant refurbish?

and who gave you the estimate for $110,000??

8

Hey! Just happened upon this posting. And seeing as you wrote this in 2013 and said you’d be wanting to sell in about 5 years I’m wondering if you sold it yet and if you are interested in selling? Thanks!