By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Village Trustee Steve Warr is asking the board to consider helping a developer with water line improvements for a 10-building duplex apartment project on outer Elm Street.

Ron Page, who wants to build the housing units across from the Valero gas station, says he’s been asking for resolution to the water supply question that he believes could have been solved by now. The village Planning Board gave preliminary approval for the plans in 2014, he says.

“The fact that we can’t find a solution that benefits everyone disturbs me. If we have problems with water delivery, we have to sit down and solve it,” said Warr.

The issue is that the most convenient water supply, a six-inch line on the same side of Elm Street as Page’s proposed development, is old and crumbling. There are doubts it would even have the capacity for the development. Village officials are considering abandoning it. The superintendent of the Department of Public Works has said it should be replaced.

Page says other options have been brought up, including tapping into larger lines across Elm Street or on Morningside Drive, either of which would be more expensive, but village government has taken no action to address the issue.

Warr, a strong advocate of development in the village, believes the board should help Page get his apartments built and on the tax rolls.

Page has promised to buy the materials himself if the village supplies the labor. And Warr believes the village should be the one to approach the state Department of Transportation, whose approval might be needed to run water lines beneath or along Elm Street.

“I think Mr. Page is not asking us to donate money, but labor and expertise, and to contact the DOT to see what’s needed by them.” If the village approaches the DOT there will be a lot less red tape than if a private party inquires, Warr said.

Outgoing village Administrator Everett Basford has maintained it is the developer’s responsibility to bring water to a project. But Warr says the village has helped at least one developer extend or improve water lines in the past.

For example, Warr says there was not enough water pressure at the SeaComm Plaza, at the corner of Market and Sisson streets, and the village connected lines that offered better service.

“So they can do it,” Warr said. “So we have already worked with private property before, and it’s still in the village interest.”

Warr says “if the board wants to put money into a private development, they can do it.” But, he added, “it would be a board decision, not a staff decision.”