The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted Thursday to give the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force six more months.

In the meantime, the county will nail down construction of a new community center.

“I don’t think anyone could say seriously that the work is done. When there’s a community center being built and when people are connected to sewer and can flush their toilets, then the work is done,” Commissioner Mark Dorosin said.

Financing for a $5.8 million sewer system is still on the table. The task force also will talk about the potential for development changing the neighborhood’s character and uses for the adjacent county-owned Greene Tract.

The Chapel Hill Town Council is committed to a new community center and sewer lines in the Rogers Road neighborhood, but how much will the town pay?

Town Council members did not answer that question last week, although some did wonder if those projects will make up for 40 years of living beside the Orange County Landfill.

Council member Jim Ward, who serves with Council member Penny Rich on the Historic Rogers Road Task Force, said the council has a lot of questions as it moves forward.

The center should be the first priority, because it will have “more impact on kids and is the easier problem to solve,” Ward said.

The center was forced to close in August because of fire and building code issues.

The County Commissioners have pledged $500,000 for a new center – roughly the cost for a 3,000-square-foot building.

The commissioners also suggested that Chapel Hill and Carrboro consider paying to equip the center, its first year of utilities, and permitting and connection costs.

Carrboro recently committed $900,000 toward the roughly $6 million sewer project. The commissioners have postponed discussion of sewer costs to a future meeting.

A task force finalized its draft report Wednesday on water, sewer and community center issues in the Rogers Road community.

The report outlined a $5.8 million sewer infrastructure plan but advised waiting until local governments decide how to pay.

The report also proposed moving and renovating the historic Hogan-Rogers house for a community center or building a new center to replace one that closed Aug. 11. That could cost $450,000 to $740,500, depending on the final plan.

Chapel Hill Town Council members suggested the county pick up the cost, since town residents pay county taxes and otherwise would be charged twice.

That prompted county commissioners to suggest an equitable solution might be that the county picks up the cost but also reviews how sales tax revenues are allocated.

“Sometimes the county feels that everything is always thrown to the county, and yet on the tax distribution, we don’t get any credit for the fact that it is actually to the advantage of the towns and not the county,” Commissioners Chairwoman Bernadette Pelissier said.