Good Hope to apply for ATRIP funds for Exit 305 lighting
Published 9:19 pm Monday, August 12, 2019
- Good Hope Mayor Jerry Bartlett, from right, speaks with council members Maxie Smith and Susan Eller during Monday night's meeting.
GOOD HOPE — The City of Good Hope is applying for state funding to install lighting at the Exit 305 interchange to help spur future development.
The city council passed a resolution Monday night to apply for funding through the Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program, or ATRIP-II, which will provide funding for infrastructure projects across the state using revenue from the recently-passed gas tax increase.
A limited number of projects will be approved by the ATRIP-II committee during each round of funding.
If the project is approved by the committee, the city would provide a 10 percent match for the lights, which are expected to cost around $1 million, Good Hope Mayor Jerry Bartlett said.
He said the interchange will need lighting sooner or later, and most companies that would want to move into the area will want lighting before they decide to build there.
The council discussed a few projects that they could apply for, including adding an access road from the Pilot Travel Center on County Road 437 to Mize Road or extending Training Center Road to Mize Road North before asking for the funding for the Exit 305 lighting.
“We’re trying to come up with three of four projects that might work, and we thought that might be one of the better projects for us,” Bartlett said. “… it’s going to develop.”
In other business, the council passed an ordinance to lower its building permit costs.
Bartlett said the price is being lowered after receiving some feedback about the costs, and the new prices are around half of what they originally were.
The new fee schedule has a $20 cost for a permit for a project that costs $1,000 or less. A project that costs from $1,001 to $49,999 will have a $20 permit cost for the first $1,000 with an extra $2 for each additional $1,000.
A project that costs $50,000 to $100,000 now costs $200 for the first $50,000 with an extra $2 for each additional $1,000, and a project that costs $100,000 or higher will now costs $400 for the first $200,000 with an extra $2 for each additional $1,000.
