DELAWARE, Ohio - Fast-growing Delaware County is planning to finance up to $13.7 million to pay for improvements to the county sewer system to allow even more homes to be built.

DELAWARE, Ohio � Fast-growing Delaware County is planning to finance up to $13.7 million to pay for improvements to the county sewer system to allow even more homes to be built.

New sewer lines will be built along Sawmill Parkway, north of Home Road, which is in the Olentangy school district. New homes are in demand in the area, said Jim Hilz, executive director of the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

�There�s a market demand out there,� Hilz said, �and sewer is very important to being able to build the kind of homes that people want to live in, in the school district they want to live in."

The association lobbied county officials to expand the sewer system and completed a study showing that a new sewer system would improve the county�s economy.

Hilz said a new sewer line north of Home Road on Sawmill Parkway would generate about $17?m illion in fees paid to tap into the system, and another $9 million in private investment in sewer lines leading to developments.

Teri Morgan, Delaware County spokeswoman, said the county would issue the bonds next week. Some of the money will also be used to get the empty and unused Lower Scioto Water Reclamation Facility, a sewage-treatment plant outside of Dublin, in working order. The county built the plant about four years ago to handle waste water from subdivisions a developer planned to build nearby. The houses were never built, though, and the treatment plant hasn�t been used.

Morgan said some of the money from the bonds would be used to get the plant ready �so it can go online when the development starts.�

larenschield@dispatch.com

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