WESTERLO — The town is embarking on a large project that would replace its deteriorating highway garage and renovate its town hall, bringing both buildings into compliance with the state’s building code.

Based on preliminary estimates of the cost, the town plans to borrow up to $2.8 million, which Frederick Grober of Delaware Engineering said was based on a $100 cap the town board wanted on the annual cost to the average taxpayer.

Supervisor Richard Rapp and Councilman William Bichteman said those numbers were suggested by the engineers and the board approved them.

“It’s a moving target,” Councilman William Bichteman said Wednesday of the cost to the town. “You have to step off the edge of the curb here to find out how deep it is.” He said he expects the actual cost to be much less, since the project could finish under budget and taxpayers have already supported a town budget with allocations for the project in recent years.

The board will vote on a bond resolution at its meeting on June 2, with a public information meeting scheduled for June 16 at 7 p.m.

The bond is subject to a permissive referendum, if enough residents sign a petition to hold a vote.

The petition to force a referendum needs to have signatures that number at least 5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last general election, or no fewer than 25.

Reached Wednesday, Aline Galgay, the town’s attorney and bond counsel, said she hadn’t yet received the necessary information to draw up the bond resolution and couldn’t confirm the numbers that it would include.

The $2.8 million borrowing limit was based on a 20-year bond and an interest rate of 4 percent, but those factors could change.

Citing direction from board members, Town Clerk Kathleen Spinnato gave The Enterprise just the top two sheets, a project schedule, from a packet of information that outlined cost estimates and was distributed to town board members during their May 19 meeting.

According to the May 19 schedule, the town-hall renovation would be bid in August and completed in March 2016, though Supervisor Richard Rapp said they hope to complete the renovation this year. The highway garage demolition would start around March 2016, according to the schedule.

The project’s designs are at this point conceptual. Describing the basic points of the project, Rapp told The Enterprise it would move Westerlo’s court from the highway garage to the town hall, making the kitchen, janitor’s closet, and an office into the justices’ chambers, and making a portion of the supervisor’s office into a conference room with improved insulation and electrical outlets; the State Police now occupying space in the highway garage would be moved to share space in the assessor’s office at Town Hall.

The town hall’s heating system, now an oil-heated low-pressure steam system, would be converted to hot air using money Rapp said is left over from when the town bought the building from the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district. The building was constructed as Westerlo’s school and, after part of Westerlo joined the Berne-Knox district, the school was used for elementary grades.

Westerlo’s purchase of the building was controversial and a public vote was overwhelmingly in favor; state grants were secured to cover the purchase price and some renovation.

The town-hall project would include additional parking spaces in the front of the building, which now has a cement walkway and a flagpole, along with handicap access at the front. The driveway would continue around the side of the building, creating a separate exit from the entrance.

Grober said Delaware Engineering is doing the planning for $25,000.

The board hired Delaware Engineering after it was divided over whether to repair the highway garage, which Rapp says was built in the 1960s. Last October, the board failed to move forward on repairs to the highway garage, including a new roof, that were estimated to cost $478,000.

“To me, you have to do something,” Bichteman said Wednesday, comparing the garage to a snowplow. “We can’t let the building fall down. You can’t go without maintenance on something.”

Now, the plan for the highway garage is to create a structure similar to the current one, but with better insulation and its bays divided in the middle by a wall. On one side, the heat could be kept higher while workers are handling metal tools and lying close to the ground. On the other side, the temperature could be kept at 50 degrees Fahrenheit for melting snow off of trucks. The building would include a break room, a parts room, and an office for the highway superintendent, which is now in a separate building.

As it is now, the highway building has one large area for its vehicles and very little insulation.

“We should be saving an astronomical amount of money on heat,” Keith Wright, the town’s highway superintendent, said to The Enterprise.