The Lake Norman Volunteer Fire Department is about to build a new firehouse, the first financed by Iredell's countywide fire tax district.
Previously, local volunteer fire departments held fund-raisers to pay the loans on their new stations. With slow, sporadic repayment, interest built up.
This time, the debt will be paid from the one-cent fire district rate now dedicated to debt reduction. The countywide fire district tax rate is five cents per $100 property value.
Putting aside one cent of the five-cent tax rate yields about $600,000 a year.
Iredell commissioners have approved the department's borrowing up to $2 million for the new building, on six acres at Brawley School and South Fork roads.
The new location is farther out Brawley peninsula, a rapidly growing residential area. In the spring, a fire gutted a $1.7 million home there.
