Storm sewer fee, Celina Record

Celina to begin charging residents monthly storm sewer utility fee Lisa Ferguson, lferguson@starlocalmedia.com Apr 8, 2016 The city of Celina will begin charging residents a new stormwater utility fee in coming months. The fee will be used as a funding stream to help pay for annual maintenance of the city’s storm sewer system and eventually large-scale storm sewer installation and improvement projects, according to Engineering and Public Works Director Gabe Johnson. “Drainage is always a utility that’s needed. It’s an underground utility that no one sees, and so it’s kind of the underfunded utility in a lot of cities,” he said. “I think that’s why you see the sewer water utility fee being implemented (in cities) across the U.S.” In Celina, system maintenance includes mowing and spraying drainage easements for vegetation management and the clean out, repair or replacement of crushed culverts, among other tasks. Long term, the city hopes to use some of the stormwater utility fees it collects to establish a storm drain system in Celina’s downtown area, which tends to flood during heavy rains. “What we want to do is go back and make something work for all of downtown … so that will be part of our focus,” Johnson said. Near downtown, on West Ash Street, a recently completed road-improvement project included the addition of box culverts and other drainage features. Johnson said a large chunk of the project’s $1.3 million price tag, which was funded by voter-approved bond money, went toward storm-sewer infrastructure upgrades. Had a stormwater utility fee previously been in place, “That could have helped pay for those culverts and that storm drain,” he said. Initially, Johnson said, the fees that will be collected are “not going to be big enough to do a big project, so I don’t want people to think as soon as we start billing them we’re going to fix everything. … The reality is that’s just not going to happen.” As the reserves build, however, “We’re going to use this money to go attack some of the smaller known issues across town,” he said. The city will likely begin by collecting residents’ complaints about problem areas, as well determine potential storm sewer projects and rank them in order of importance based on public safety, cost and time concerns. However, Johnson said, the city is legally prevented from addressing storm sewer, water and wastewater utility issues on private property that does not feature an easement or right-of-way area unless it poses a public safety hazard. A fee rate schedule for developed properties in Celina has already been determined. It is based on a property’s impact on the storm collection system via its impervious areas such as rooftops and parking lots. Residential properties will be placed on a three-tier system based on size of the house, including its square footage and number of stories. The fee for homes that land in the Tier 1 category is $4.90 per month, while Tier 2 is $7.90 and Tier 3 is $13.25. For example, residents living in a one-story, 2,000-square-foot home will likely be placed in the Tier 2 category, Johnson explained. “Your footprint is going to be bigger than a two-story house with the same living area because you’re stacking it instead of spreading it out.” Meanwhile, the two-story home would fall in the Tier 1 category. “It doesn’t matter if you’re on a half-acre, one acre or a hundred acres,” he said. “The lot size you live on has nothing to do with the impervious area.” Commercial and multifamily properties, meanwhile, will be charged a fee of $7.75 per month for each equivalent residential unit (called an ERU) of impervious area. Each ERU equals 5,000 square feet of impervious area. “What we’re trying to do is capture the true imperviousness that you’re contributing to the overall (storm sewer) system,” he said. Buildings owned by the Celina ISD and area church buildings will not be charged a stormwater utility fee. The Celina City Council approved the establishment of the monthly fee at a meeting last December. “It’s an important project for the city because we want to focus on making masterplans for the future,” Celina City Manager Mike Foreman said. “We want to make sure that we alleviate some of our storm drain issues that have traditionally affected our city.” However, it seems that at least some local residents only just learned about the fee in March. That’s when a flyer detailing the functions of storm water utilities as well as a breakdown of the city’s rate schedule was mailed to residents with their regular monthly utility bill. “The flyer has generated a lot of discussion,” Johnson said, adding that he and Michael Montgomery, the city’s administrative services manager, have fielded about three dozen calls from residents, most of whom are not in favor of the fee’s implementation. Others, he said, have called seeking additional information. “The feeling I get from some people who have called in, they say, `Well, I don’t have a storm drain, we have ditches in front of our house,’” Johnson said. “That’s still part of the stormwater system even though it’s not a storm drain with curbed gutters.” Fred Helms, a local Realtor and former Celina City Councilman, is not in favor of the stormwater utility fee. He said that as developers have built homes throughout the city in past decades, they were charged impact, engineering and other fees – the costs of which were passed along to buyers in the purchase price of homes. Therefore, Helms said, “You’ve already paid for the storm drainage in the area that you specifically live in. Now the city is coming along and wanting another fee for storm drainage which has nothing to do with your home where you live, but the other areas of Celina that need storm drainage work.” Helms said he opposes such fees “because they become a revenue stream for the city of Celina, and then the (city) council ... can use these fees to borrow additional money and indebt the city and they will use this fee … for other stuff. “It’s just another mechanism for the city to continue to indebt us for things that may be good or may not be good for Celina,” he said. Johnson, however, said it is mandated by the state that fees collected by cities for the purpose of the stormwater utility be used only for system-related issues and projects. The fee could start appearing on customers’ monthly utility bill as early as next month or as late as this fall, he said.