CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Homeowners in Cape Coral’s North 3 Utilities Extension Project zone now have another year to collect funds to pay for the project.<\/p>\n
They also have to wait to see how a redesigned plan will affect the cost. Even as Zone 3 is delayed roughly 12 months, other projects will continue on their timelines, according to the city.<\/p>\n
Josh Boyd lives in the utilities extension zone that borders North 3. As a homeowner who also owns a second plot of land in the expansion zone, he’s already trying to figure out how he will pay for the project.<\/p>\n
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“Literally every single day, it keeps me up. It’s horrible,” Boyd said.<\/p>\n
Construction for the North 1 UEP is expected to be completed in 2027. In a packet breaking down the project, homeowners had to pay more than $25,000, and if they couldn’t pay up front, they could opt into a 20, 25 or 30-year payment plan.<\/p>\n
“At least I have time because I’m working still. But what? So I’m working so that all my fun money, my savings, can go to water, so that I can then be billed for the water, it’s just crazy,” Boyd said.<\/p>\n
For a standard 10,000-square-foot lot getting all three services, annual payments would come out to more than $3,700 over 30 years. The cost for the project depends on lot size and how much a homeowner can pay up front.<\/p>\n
A Northwest 3 neighbor said if the project had continued and homeowners had been charged $41,000, a 20-year payment plan would cost almost $5,000 annually.<\/p>\n
Boyd said he pays $5,000 in taxes yearly, he fears for what the North 10 EUP will cost.<\/p>\n
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“To basically double my\u00a0tax bill for the next 20 to 30 years, it’s not sustainable,” Boyd said. “You know to have seniors, people who are on a fixed income, living on Social Security, they’re retirees down here. How are they supposed to cough up that money?” Boyd said.<\/p>\n
With the project looming, Boyd said he’s thought about avoiding the cost altogether.<\/p>\n
“I’m definitely thinking of selling already. My parents, they live a mile up the street, we’re thinking of selling, and it sucks because this area is incredible,” Boyd said.<\/p>\n
North 3 UEP neighbors will have to wait for the redesign to see how much that project will cost. The next step for North 3 is a vote on Nov. 2, where city council will vote to repeal the ordinances that have been approved so the city can go back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Homeowners in Cape Coral’s North 3 Utilities Extension Project zone now have another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-429075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}