Park Ridge officials say the city has a problem: Its sewer system needs tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of work in the coming years to handle seemingly increasing amounts of stormwater.
But the choices on how to pay for the upgrades are few, officials have said. For aldermen, the options may also be unsavory: raise property taxes, hike water and sewer fees, make residents of particular neighborhoods share the cost of projects via “special service area” assessments or — perhaps — implement a new stormwater utility fee.
First suggested earlier this year, the utility fee’s appeal is growing among aldermen whose reluctance to raise property taxes led to the Park Ridge Public Library’s Nov. 4 tax rate referendum question, and who have been known to argue for hours over the costs and fates of repair and maintenance projects, amounts of bids for services and the propriety of employees’ trip reimbursements.
“The more I hear about it, the more (a utility fee) makes sense,” said Ald. Nicholas Milissis, at a recent committee of the whole meeting of the City Council.
Moreover, the utility charge — a monthly fee based on the amount of a property’s impervious surface — would also serve as a dedicated revenue source for stormwater management. Officials have further said the fee could allow future City Councils to avoid situations like the looming decision on whether Mayfield Estates residents should pay some portion of the $3.5 million project slated to help alleviate that neighborhood’s flooding woes.
Park Ridge Mayor David Schmidt warned that project is not likely to move forward without some sort of cost sharing. But aldermen that night rejected cost-sharing splits akin to the city’s 50-50 split with homeowners for sidewalk repairs, or its 75-25 split for alley improvements.
Aldermen also agreed, however, to request proposals from consulting firms to help Park Ridge decide whether to establish a stormwater utility fee and if so, how it would work. City Manager Shawn Hamilton said a draft request will be brought to aldermen for review this month.
A stormwater utility fee is a set amount charged to property owners and is usually dedicated to stormwater management and/or flood control projects, officials have said. Many fees are set as a flat rate or tiered by the percentage or proportion of property that is covered over by impervious surfaces like asphalt or other paving, concrete, or a building — anything that prevents rain from soaking into the ground.
Some stormwater utility fee programs include rebates or refunds for property owners who reduce the amount of impervious surface.
Douglas Noel, vice president of environment and infrastructure for the international engineering and consulting firm AMEC, said stormwater utility fees arose in the mid-1970s. Today there are about 1,600 across the United States, he told aldermen.
They’re popular because they’re paid by every property owner, which makes them more equitable than property taxes, and more stable because they’re not subject to fluctuating property values, Noel said.
In Illinois, stormwater utility fees are usually a flat rate and range from a $1.95 per month in Moline to $21.83 in Winnetka, he said.
Champaign’s 2-year-old stormwater utility fee, for example, is paid by all property owners whose properties have at least 500 square feet of impervious area — even churches, schools and other nonprofit organizations. Property owners can reduce their fees by reducing their property’s impervious surface.
Monthly fees for single-family residences range from $4.94 per month for properties with 500 to 6,000 square feet of impervious surface to $10.55 for properties with 6,001 to 8,000 square feet, and $13.64 for more than 8,000 square feet.
All other properties pay $1.51 per month for every 1,000 square feet of impervious surface.
Valdosta, Ga., a city of 54,518 people just above the Georgia-Florida state line, established its stormwater utility in 2006, after a two-year study by a committee of community “stakeholders” that included school districts, hospitals and industries whose properties would be among the hardest hit by the new fee.
Larry Hanson, Valdosta’s city manager, said the $1.1 million raised by the fee not only doubled the amount of money going to stormwater management but is fairer than property tax and is actually encouraging better site design and even municipal operations.
“Since it’s a fee and not a tax, no one’s exempt. If you’re not paying for it, you don’t have the same appreciation for how the decisions you make affect the system,” Hanson said. “Everybody now is a stakeholder.”
Credits allow property owners to reduce their fees, up to 60 percent in some cases, depending on what they do to mitigate stormwater runoff.
Both Hanson and Elizabeth Davenport, assistant director of the city’s engineering department, said the keys to community support were sustained public input and education.
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“People are often leery of creating that community advisory committee, but we felt that was the only way to do it,” Hanson said. “That’s an important piece that a lot of governments fail to take advantage of.”
After a consultant was hired in 2004, the city held three public hearings, tweaking the program each time, before submitting the final stormwater utility ordinance to the city council in the spring of 2006. Fee collection began later that year.
Since then, Hanson said the stormwater utility has forced the city to re-examine its zoning code, parking requirements and role in encouraging better stormwater management, and generated more creative site planning from developers.
“Once engineers and architects and all began to realize that it was an issue, it matters and there would be a fee associated with it, I’m sure they started thinking, ‘How can we reduce these costs for our clients?'” he said. “I just began to see a lot more innovation.”
For the city’s part, Hanson said churches’ overflow parking now can be on grass instead of paved surfaces, and stores can share parking lots.
“You look at it through your development standards, you look at it though your fees, you look at it through your regulations to get the behavior you want,” he said.