A group of north Spokane County residents have voted to form a $1.3 million road improvement district to improve about five miles of county roads that will serve as a paved link between paved roads in Pend Oreille and Spokane counties.

The project would encompass about five miles of unpaved roads between Elk-Chattaroy Road and the Pend Oreille County line. Pat Frankovic, a Spokane County road improvement district administrator, says property owners along the route passed a ballot measure by a 54 percent majority to create the district. The district includes about 165 parcels, and landowners had one vote for each dollar they would spend on the project as determined through an assessment process.

In the project, a chip seal will be applied on Nelson Road between Conklin and Jackson roads, on Jackson between Nelson and Oregon roads, on Oregon between Jackson and Jefferson roads, and on Jefferson between Oregon Road and the county line, where Oregon meets up with Spring Valley Road.

Spokane County anticipates that its road maintenance crew will do the work this spring and summer, Frankovic says. In the chip seal, the crew will lay down gravel, pack it and grade it, then apply hot oil to it in two treatments, he says.

Preliminary work, including any needed work on culverts, will begin in the spring, and the project likely will be ready for the hot oil to be applied in August or early September, Frankovic says.

Spokane County is covering 40 percent of the cost of the project, partly because the work will create a paved link between the two paved roads, Frankovic says. To determine how much it will pay to help cover the cost of such projects, the county looks at how much traffic there is on a given stretch of road, and whether the benefit from improving the road will extend beyond the route, he says.

"There was a bigger community benefit than just to the neighborhood," Frankovic says. Typically, the county covers 15 percent of the cost of improvements done through a road improvement district, although that percentage can vary, he says.

The county is preparing a second possible road improvement district in the same vicinity, Frankovic says. That district, which would include about 200 parcels of property, would pay for improvements on Bridges Road between Elk-Chattaroy and Jackson roads, on Madison Road between Nelson and Frideger roads, and on a short section of Frideger west from its intersection with Madison. If that district is formed, Frankovic says, those improvements would be slated for construction in 2010.