ROWLAND — The executive director of the Robeson County Housing Authority tasked the Board of Commissioners here with coming up with a plan of action to fund half the cost of replacing waterlines at Benton Court.

The plan comes with a deadline of April 2021, Niakeya Cooper said.

Accompanied by Robeson County Deputy Manager Jason King and Commissioner Pauline Campbell, Cooper gave a presentation on the need for not only replacing the waterline but also repaving the roads and parking lot at Benton Court, which is one of four housing complexes owned by the authority.

According to Cooper, the roads were recently paved in 2016 using funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but because of the waterline problems, the town’s Public Works Department has had to drill several holes to fix leaks.

The cracked sidewalks, erosion and lack of curbside appeal could result in the Housing Authority dropping from its High Performance Designation, which could mean less funding from HUD, Cooper said.

According to LKC Engineering, the plan to remove and relocate waterlines from beneath asphalt and roadways to Housing Authority grounds carries a preliminary estimated cost of $235,200, of which the Housing Authority has agreed to pay half. But the town cannot afford to pay the other half, said Mayor Michelle Shooter.

Shooter and Rowland Town Clerk David Townsend went before the Robeson County Board of Commissioners in April seeking assistance in paying for the town’s half of the bill.

“We didn’t hear back until three months that they could not help,” Shooter said.

According to Shooter, the town began the conversation of repairing the waterline due to the number of town resources used at Benson Court. Townsend said the Josh Pierce had reporter more than 30 repairs to the line in his first six months as director of town’s Public Works. During that time workers have been taken away from other projects in town that need their attention, Townsend said.

Although the Town was set back on seeking funding because the delayed response from the county, the April timeline to come up with a funding plan is doable, Townsend said.

In other business

The commissioners adopted a resolution comprised of the 11 state-mandated policies the town needs to comply with in relation to Community Development Block Grant funding the town received. The move is a necessary administrative step for the town, which received the grant in the amount of $2 million from the North Carolina Department of Commerce in May to fund the replacement and repair of sewer lines along Canal and Bond streets, as well as the sewer plant.

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2022 and could take up to six months to complete, according to Townsend.

Also Tuesday, the commissioners approved amendments to the town’s computer gaming ordinance, deleting language that sets the hours of operation the facilities within the town can run.

The Commissioners voted in September to do away with mandatory hours of operation for computer gaming facilities allowing owners of the business to operate on a 24-hour basis if they choose to do so.

The hours of operations previously approved in the ordinance were 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Mondays through Fridays, 7 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays and from 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Sundays.