La Habra Heights workshop flags sharp cost rises in roads program; council weighs assessment hikes and prioritization

City officials, the roads advisory committee and residents met in La Habra Heights for a workshop that reviewed a decade of street-repair data and the finances behind Benefit Assessment District 7, the property-tax assessment set up in 2016 to fund street repairs.

The presentation, led by roads committee members and city staff, showed project awards and actual construction costs from 2017'18 through the 23'25 cycle and attributed steep increases to higher asphalt prices, elevated mobilization/traffic-control costs, prevailing-wage requirements and rising inspection and design expenses. Staff said asphalt unit costs rose from roughly $80'$85 per ton in earlier projects to about $142 per ton on the most recent project, a change that substantially raised construction totals.

"We can't control escalating costs and we can't continue to take money out of the general fund," one council member said during the workshop, summarizing the presenters' conclusion that the assessment needs a built-in cost accelerator if it is to avoid becoming "a leech on the general…