St. Martins area gets Neighborhood Improvement District

The Cole County Commission has approved the creation of a neighborhood improvement district in the St. Martins area.

More than 100 properties off Route T will be in the Parkview Meadows Neighborhood Improvement District.

Hawthorn Bank will do the financing for the project.

Landowners will have the option of paying off their costs 30 days after the work is finished or having it go on their tax bill as a lien.

The county public works department will oversee the work, which includes improvements of streets, curbs, driveway entrances and drainage work.

The estimated cost of the improvements is $607,812.

The timeline for the project calls for an engineer to be hired in December, the bids for work on the project to go out in February and actual construction starting in March or April.

The neighborhood improvement district was created by state statute to allow neighborhoods that are not up to county code to be fixed so they can be accepted into the county road system.

No county tax dollars are being used.

The majority of landowners signed a petition for this to happen.

This work is above and beyond what the county normally would do on road projects not in the county road system.