Frost Residents Cooperative, a 30-unit manufactured housing community, is applying for block grant funds to provide better drinking water to the complex.
Councilors agreed at their Jan. 3 meeting to schedule a public hearing on the proposal for Jan. 17. That meeting has since been rescheduled to Jan. 24 and will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the third-floor meeting room of the Municipal Center.
Named for famed American Poet Robert Frost, who once lived in Derry, the Frost Residents Cooperative, at 139 Rockingham Road, is currently on a private well and private septic system. The system is aging and dates to the 1960s, according to officials.
“They are failing, and there is physically not more room that they can put new ones in,” Planning Director George Sioras said at a prior meeting.
In 2015, Councilors agreed to allow the Frost Residents Cooperative to apply for up to $500,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds to pay for a project to connect to the town’s water and sewer system.
According to the proposed application, the town will retain up to $25,000 for administrative expenses, with remainder to be used toward financing the reconnection into the municipal water and sewer system of the Cooperative.
Within the past two years, the town completed a project to expand municipal water and sewer along Rockingham Road to Route 28 and along Route 28 and By-Pass 28. Allowing the complex to connect to the town’s water lines would help provide safer drinking water while also improving water pressure, Sioras said.
Public Works Director Michael Fowler said the change could be made in less than a day.
In 2014, councilors approved a plan to pay for up to $12,000 in CDBG funds to conduct a study to determine if it would be possible for the cooperative’s private water system to be able to connect to the town’s water system.