COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

Above and below ground, Costa Mesa is a city that’s showing and feeling its age.

Much of the township’s housing stock dates to the 1950s and earlier. There’s no shortage of those old crank-open windows or worn stucco siding. Even asphalt driveways aren’t hard to find. And that’s just the stuff you can see.

Under the turf are thousands of miles of elderly pipes that usher away from our homes all the unmentionables of everyday life; the stuff that makes all of us equal. Suffice it to note that the job they do isn’t quite what it was when they were sprite, young sewer laterals. Knees are like that, too.

For the mostly middle-class campers who call Costa Mesa home, pumping new life into a home or bringing a sewer lateral up to snuff can inflict heavy damage to the wallet.

But there are a pair of programs in Costa Mesa that have been easing the financial hit for residential property owners wanting to bring the look and function of their homes into the 21st century. And despite what your political inclinations tell you about government programs, these are good efforts that are producing good results.

The third act of Costa Mesa’s Residential Remodeling Incentive Program (RRIP) ends Dec. 14. Conceived by City Councilman Eric Bever and launched in 2005, the initiative has been providing the monetary spark residents need to slap a new roof on the house or add a room; essentially, any home improvement project that requires a plan check and building permits from the city. That spark is a full waiver of the city’s plan check and construction permit fees. That’s a tab that usually sets you back several hundred and even thousands of Washingtons.

Bever anticipates that with the third year of the project near completion, as much as $35 million in residential improvements will have been completed since RRIP’s inception three years ago. Provided the City Council continues to support it and “the staff doesn’t revolt,” he anticipates the program will likely return next year.

Last July, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District hatched its Residential Sewer Lateral and Cleanout Financial Assistance Program. The brainwork of former Costa Mesa mayor and current Sanitary District Board Member Gary Monahan, the program provides financial assistance for the inspection and cleaning of residential sewer laterals (read: that nasty pipe between your house and the sewer main in the street).

What many folks don’t know is that maintaining and repairing that stretch of pipe is the responsibility of the property owner. Under the program, the Costa Mesa Sanitary District will chip in to cover half the cost (up to an $1,800 contribution) of the residential property owner’s bill to check out the condition of their sewer lateral, clean it out, install a new cleanout for easier access in the future and reconstruct the lateral if necessary.

Apart from the hefty expense homeowners incur to maintain sewer laterals, Monahan says the program is important for a number of reasons. Components of Costa Mesa’s sewer system are as much as 60 years old. Leaks and breaks can lead to raw sewage creeping into and contaminating the groundwater, something the county’s sanitary agency wouldn’t take to kindly. Plus, lawmakers in Sacramento are chatting about making sewer lateral inspections mandatory as part of the sale of a home.

There’s more to be learned about the Residential Sewer Lateral and Cleanout Financial Assistance Program on the Costa Mesa Sanitary District’s website at www.cmsdca.gov.

The grinding, smoke-belching machinery of government may usually drive us crazy, but from time to time it gets it right. In these two instances, the city is on the right track.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa parks and recreation commissioner. Readers can reach him at cmunplugged@yahoo.com.