Hamilton picks streets for 2021 paving with levy money: Is yours on the list?

The city will pave 31 streets in 2021 using street-repair levy funds, although work on one or more of those streets may extend into 2022 because they will wait until work on sewers or other utilities is finished.

Officials said that by the time that first batch of streets is finished, they will have worked on all or parts of five of the roadways that residents ranked in the Top 10 of streets they most wanted to see paved.

Those streets include top vote-getter Grand Boulevard, which was mostly completed in 2020 without use of levy funds. Some parking lanes have not been paved along Grand, but those are awaiting completion of a roundabout in the area first. The second-highest vote-getter, Tylersville Road, will be paved this year from Hamilton Enterprise Park to Gateway, as will third-place Sanders Drive.

No. 6 Corwin Avenue also made the list, but that work may lag into 2022 because officials plan to fix an odorous sanitary sewer there first. Also, Eaton Avenue was completed last year, before street-levy money began being collected this year.

People who didn’t see their top choices make the 2021 list still have nine more years of the levy — and can vote for their top choices each of the next nine years, even for ones they voted for in earlier years — said city Director of Neighborhoods Brandon Saurber. Each neighborhood over the 10 years will receive close to its percentage of streets, officials have promised.

City residents can vote at hamilton-oh.gov/streetslevy.

The 10-year 3.9-mill property tax levy will generate $3.1 million per year and cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $136.50 a year.

The city created a specific fund that all the tax-levy money will go into so people can track how every dollar generated by the levy was spent. Officials hope that when the 10 years are finished, voters will be satisfied with what they saw and will approve a renewal.

City Director of Engineering Rich Engle said the Corwin Avenue sewer work will not be bid until early this summer, and that construction will take 6-9 months. That sewer is happening to solve an odor problem that residents have faced for years. There’s a place where sewage from a 36-inch pipe drops about 10 feet before going into an 18-inch pipe. When the sewage drops, it stirs up odors. The construction will extend the larger pipe farther to the west and eliminate the large drop.

Meanwhile, a water-main project in the area of Leo and Sanders drives, a 6-inch old water main will be replaced by an 8-inch ductile-iron water main. Depending on how quickly that happens, “that resurfacing may have to be extended into 2022 as well,” Engle said.