Scott commissioners voted unanimously to advertise for bids for a retaining wall to be built behind homes on Boroview Avenue -- even though they don't have enough money for the complete project, which would be done on private property.

"I don't like it, but I'll say 'yes,'" said Commissioner Bill Wells, one of several officials who had questions about the project before the Feb. 23 vote.

The soldier beam and lagging wall would protect five century-old homes whose back yards started slipping in months after the 2004 Hurricane Ivan rains.

To construct a wall on all of the affected properties, an estimated $750,000 would be needed, but Scott has just $400,000 -- $100,000 from a 2007 county Growing Greener Grant and $300,000 from a legislative initiative grant in December from state Rep. Nick Kotik, D-Robinson, through the state Department of Community and Economic Development.

Joe Boward of Garvin Boward Beitko, the geotechnical engineers who did core testing on the hillside and designed the wall parameters, explained that the proposed structure would have to be 204 feet long.

However, since the township doesn't have enough money for the entire wall, he recommended shortening it to 108 feet in back of the three middle properties -- 332, 336 and 338 -- where the land is most unstable. Only 12 feet of the wall would extend behind 342 and nothing would be placed behind 328.

"I don't have a solution to protect all of these homes for $400,000," Mr. Boward said.

Residents would have to give permission for the construction, which would involve removing and replacing decks, porches and landscaping.

One reason the township is proceeding now is that its Department of Community and Economic Development grant could be forfeited in April.

Commissioner David Jason noted that the township had pushed for Mr. Kotik to obtain the grant. "It'd look bad if we don't use it," he said.

As to the legality of using public money for work on private property, solicitor Bob McTiernan said he "felt comfortable" that the township code allows officials to spend money to protect public safety.

"I feel there is a genuine risk to the people in those homes and also some risk to the waterways," Mr. McTiernan said, conceding that Bluff Street, which abuts the rear of the affected properties, is "ambiguous." Bluff Street is a paper street.

It is a barricaded area that is a narrow path built by mill workers and was never accepted or vacated as a township street.

First Published: March 4, 2010, 11:00 a.m.