Mansfield: Countywide sewer system could ease affordable housing shortage|[12/02/07]

Published 12:00 am Sunday, December 2, 2007

New port commission chief believes idea worth further study

A countywide sewer system for Warren County would likely cost millions, but the new executive director of the Warren County Port Commission believes it could break open the area’s tight supply of affordable housing.

Wayne Mansfield, discussing economic development goals for his first year in office, said he believes the system is worth studying as a way of luring high-profile companies looking to make a big splash in the local job market.

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“It has its own set of issues, but we could see more residential development here,” he said.

Along with the high dropout rate in public schools here and statewide, housing starts remaining in the $150,000-and-up range have conspired to dampen the pro-business environment Mansfield said is fostered statewide by Gov. Haley Barbour and locally by county supervisors.

Nearly a quarter of workers countywide commute from other counties or parishes, according the U.S. Census figures. Mansfield said just 10 percent of that number could translate into 600 homes if the market was stimulated.

A network of sewer lines reaching far into the county’s rural areas north and south of Vicksburg would eliminate the expense of setting up wastewater treatment systems for employees of property-shopping companies, he said.

Such systems usually cost about $5,000 for the average person to install, depending on property size and soil type. For county taxpayers, Board President Richard George said, laying sewer pipes to cover more than 500 square miles of Warren County outside Vicksburg would be a tremendous undertaking.

“The sheer cost of the project is quite staggering, given other expenses we know we have coming,” George said.

Pipes carrying clean water to and wastewater from homes are generally made of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. A petroleum by-product, the cost of PVC pipe reached highs up to $3 per linear foot in the months after Hurricane Katrina because of interrupted oil and natural gas supplies. Though recent price checks show decreases, its cost is still subject to changes in energy prices.

Mansfield, 42, was named executive director by county supervisors in September after the departure of five-year director Jim Pilgrim. Mansfield spent six years as a city planner for Vicksburg, playing lead roles in grant-funded projects such as NRoute and the planned Transportation Museum.

More realistic among Mansfield’s stated goals is enhancing relationships the commission has with Kinder Morgan, Entergy, Mississippi Development Authority and the Greater Jackson Alliance — contacts he sees as key to keeping existing business.

Marketing is “a real important” aspect of growing business, he said, adding infrastructure improvements such as a new and improved T-dock platform at the Port of Vicksburg must be completed.

This year, Warren County renewed $2.5 million in port improvement bonds to pair with federal and state grants already secured to pay for its replacement. Such a commitment from county supervisors reflects favorably in efforts to market the area to companies shopping for property, he said.

While he agreed grant-seeking efforts should be spread countywide — a function under study by supervisors relating to housing programs — tax incentives remain dicey.

“They are a valuable tool,” Mansfield said, adding Warren County’s participation in the Vicksburg/Jackson Foreign-Trade Zone Inc. remains a plus.

Tax breaks were an issue last year, as Warren County was one of more than a dozen locations considered for a rail car plant planned by Canadian boxcar maker National Steel Car Ltd. — recruited under the code name Project Tiger.

In a July announcement, the company chose to locate a $200 million plant and 1,800 jobs in Colbert County, Ala., after an extensive recruitment effort that included its local legislative delegation and Gov. Bob Riley. State and local incentives for the company totaled about $140 million, including sales tax hikes to be set aside for economic development in the region, part of the Muscle Shoals metro area.

In published reports this week, Gov. Riley said he was working with northwest Alabama’s congressional delegation to have Colbert County included in the Katrina-inspired Gulf Opportunity Zone to supplement state financing for the plant.

A site between U.S. 61 North and the Yazoo River was sought by company officials when visiting Warren County. Efforts were scuttled because of flood elevation issues at the site and lack of consensus among county supervisors on such inducements as free port warehousing and inventory tax exemptions.