SEVEN FIELDS — While crews dig up neighboring Cranberry Township for ongoing cable infrastructure upgrades, Seven Fields borough council amended its own road-opening permit fees Monday, Oct. 23.

"There’s a potential in the near future for somebody to come in and do a lot of work in the road,“ borough engineer John Balewski said. ”We’re talking 10 miles of work.“

In 25 years, Balewski said he had only seen approximately six applications, which cover the excavation of the roads and rights of way in the township.

“I’ve probably only seen $600 in road-opening fees,” he said, “but it’s something that’s going to come up more and more with people wanting to bury stuff in your right of way — your property.”

Previously, a permit cost a flat rate of $100 per project — regardless of the project’s scope.

“It doesn’t make sense; you have a lot of costs associated with that,” he said. “Most places have a fee per opening, so if you dig a hole, you pay a fee. If you put in pipe, you pay a fee on top of that.”

With Armstrong, Consolidated Communications and Comcast ramping up expansion projects in neighboring Cranberry Township, borough manager Tom Smith said the borough was being “proactive” in amending the permits.

“So the recommendation is $250 per hole, and then that $250 would cover 250 feet of pipe but anything over that would be $1 per foot,” Balewski said. “If somebody puts in 50,000 feet of pipe, they will pay $50,000 for the road application.”

He said the fees would also help cover costs for public works employees, who are responsible for identifying all water and stormwater infrastructure ahead of any digging.

“This is much more reasonable, much more what most municipalities do,” he said. “That’s my recommendation to help cover costs.”

Council also adopted an ordinance allowing publicly owned all-terrain vehicles on borough rights of way.

Smith said the ordinance was enacted after public works officials were cited for operating a utility vehicle on the roadside.

“Just to be informative: That’s for our new (John Deere) Gator, so we don’t have to take out large trucks,” borough council president Kimberly Regan-Koch said. “We can get in and do smaller projects and drive that through the neighborhood.”

Council members also entertained a request from Cranberry Township for a $37,904 donation to the township’s public library.

“That’s up from your $14,545 donation this year,” Smith told council.

Regan-Koch said the borough was already meeting donation criteria for the library to receive necessary federal funding.

“We’ve done that year after year after year, despite the fact that only 4% of our population now has a Cranberry Public Library card,” she said.

Vice president Dawn Servello motioned to donate $14,545 again instead.

Her motion to maintain a consistent donation was seconded by council member Jeff Smouse and unanimously approved.