Pioneertown water fees OK’d

SAN BERNARDINO – County supervisors voted final approval Tuesday for levying a fee of $243 on each of 328 properties in the Pioneertown area north of Yucca Valley to finance design work and assessment proceedings toward replacing the community’s deteriorated water system.

Ed Houston, special districts engineer, said that if property assessments for construction financing are approved after county board hearings early next year, the new system can be completed by next summer.

The assessments would pay off a 40-year, $520,000 loan offered by the state Department of Water Resources at interest rates averaging about 11 percent. Houston said a previous plan was to expand the water system to serve additional properties, but the state agency declined to loan any more money than that necessary to replace the present system.