TOWN OF JOHNSTOWN — The Johnstown Town Board voted unanimously on Monday to pay Clifton Park-based Environmental Design Partnership (EDP) $68,500 to conduct an engineering study for a water line extension onto State Route 349.
Johnstown Supervisor Jack Wilson told the board the funding for the project will come from the approximately $349,000 remaining from the town’s $1.2 million U.S. American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) grant.
“I met with [EDP engineer] Travis Mitchell and [Fulton County Planning Director] Scott Henze and we sat for an hour going over all of the 349 project and Barker Road, etc. and [Mitchell] provided the estimate,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the scope of the work would include an engineering study for a water line extension to State Route 349, and the area, once connected, would be a part of the Barker Road Water District.
“He’s also going to do additional [engineering] plans for Greed Road and Pleasant View Drive,” Wilson said. “He’ll give us [construction cost estimates] for option 1 and option 2 for that.”
The town previously hired EDP for the engineering work for the $800,000 ARPA-funded project to extend municipal water service from Gloversville to town hall and additional town residents on Route 29. Wilson said the State Route 349 project would be similar in that Travis Mitchell would oversee the work.
Town Board member Tim Rizzo introduced the resolution to transfer the $68,500 worth of ARPA money for the purpose of paying EDP.
Rizzo said he wants to make sure the remaining ARPA money is used for other town projects, such as the possibly extension of water service to Myrtle Avenue, as well as projects including the town’s rural cemeteries and an addition to Town Hall.
Rizzo asked Town Code Enforcement Officer Todd Unislawski if he could determine how many houses could be built on Myrtle Avenue if the owner of a number of smaller lots combined those lots, giving the town board an idea of the potential development that could occur if a water line were extended to that area.
“Yeah, I can do that, but some of those lots, to come up with something even close to half an acre, you’d have to combine four or five or six of them,” Unislawski said.
After the meeting, Rizzo said he hopes the engineering study for State Route 349 will be completed within two and a half months to give the town more time to apply for state and federal grant money to build the proposed water extensions.
