Archive: News

The Village of Lansing will have a new office building within the next two years.  Mayor Donald Hartill says that with the 500,000 gallon water tank being taken out of commission this week, the way is finally cleared to demolish it and put new Village offices on the site.

"The goal is to move all of our staff into a common building," he says.  "We will not have a new meeting room.  We will continue to use the current meeting room.  Some fraction of the current building will become storage and document storage."


The current Village office occupies a building once owned by the Bolton Point Water Commission.  In fact part of the building is still used to pump water, creating noise and vibration in the Village offices.  While the building has an adequate meeting room, the Codes office is cramped with forms and blue prints stashed in every available corner.

The water tank has been used to service water to a portion of the Village, but it is old and past its useful life.  Plans to replace a 1.5 million gallon tank on Horizon Drive will include the construction of a second 900,000 gallon tank on the same site.  The new tank will be used while the old one is replaced, then provide additional capacity.  That project has been delayed for some time as commission members debate what kind of replacement tank to buy.  For some years that has held up the demolition of the smaller tank above the Village Office, which wouldl not be needed at that point. 

Water officials determined that it could be taken out of commission now, by adding pressure-relieving valves and replumbing part of the system.  That finally provides the Village the go-ahead to remove the tank, making space for an office building.

The new building will provide space for all Village employees.  Currently that includes three Department of Public Works employees, a Code Enforcement Officer, a Fire Inspector, and the Village Clerk/Treasurer.  The new building may also include an office for use by the Mayor and Board of Trustees.


At the same time the garage complex will be expanded.  With the Village plowing its own roads for the first time this year, half the existing garage had to be given over to salt storage.  New, bigger equipment for plowing also increased the amount of equipment that must be stored, some of which will spend this winter exposed to the elements.

The project will be subject to permissive referendum, which means that once it is approved by the Trustees a resident who wants it put to a vote may try to collect enough signatures on a petition to make that happen.  Hartill says the money for the project is already in the Village's capital reserve fund, so the construction will not cost taxpayers any additional taxes.

"There will be no bonding, and no increase in taxes," he says.  "The money will come from the savings we accumulated on the North Triphammer Road project.  It's called good fiscal management."

Hartill says the early conceptual planning has already begun, and he expects the old tank to be demolished as soon as the weather allows for an adequate construction season, probably in the Spring.  He says construction on the new offices could begin as soon as next Fall.

"It will look like a standard house," Hartill says.  "One of the design features will be that it will be energy-benign.  The garage will be just an extension.  It will not change the character of the neighborhood."

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