Property owners could face higher fees

Water bills might be rising soon for residential and commercial property owners in Mecklenburg County, but commercial property owners would take the biggest hit.

A proposal would change the structure of stormwater fee credits as a result of a 2008 ordinance that required stormwater-control devices to include water-quality controls.

Currently, the credits only apply to property owners who have stormwater-control devices. But since the adoption of the Post Construction Controls Ordinance, the fee credit structure is outdated, since it doesn’t take into account water-quality control devices, said Darryl Hammock, Charlotte’s water quality and environmental permitting manager.

The city and county’s plan could reduce the fee credits for eligible property owners countywide.

Most residential property owners, who already pay $8 a month in stormwater fees on their water bills, would see an increase of a few pennies a month, Hammock said. Residential property owners with farm ponds might see a roughly 40-cent increase, which “most folks would consider minor,” Hammock said.

But commercial property owners, who already pay more in such fees, could see a bigger increase on their bills.

Currently, commercial properties are assessed a monthly fee of $150 for every acre of impervious surface, like a parking lot or roof, on their site.

“Every commercial property is going to be a little bit different, but they’re going to tend to see their bills go up,” Hammock said. “I don’t know how many dollars, but it will be a 15 to 20 percent increase or something like that.”

The proposed changes have the Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition, a Charlotte-based lobbying group, concerned about the higher costs that commercial property owners would face.

“It’s just not an incentive that someone can get a fee credit for a stormwater project or installation and then not know that that credit is going to be there for the foreseeable future, that another council or department can come and change it back later,” said Joe Padilla, REBIC’s executive public policy director. “That’s probably our biggest concern.”

Padilla wants the old fee credit structure to be grandfathered in for commercial property owners who had stormwater-control devices, such as ponds and detention basins, installed before the 2008 ordinance.

Stormwater fee credits have been in place in the county for 20 years.

Under the current rules, commercial and residential property owners who have stormwater-control devices are eligible for a fee credit, applied to their water bill charges, of up to 100 percent. That credit reduces the stormwater fees on water bills (the $8 a month for residential properties and the $150 for commercial ones).

The average property owner receives a 49 percent credit, according to the city.

Roughly 1,000 residential basins have been built on the 225,000 residential properties in the county, Hammock said. Among the 25,000 commercial properties countywide, there are about 350 stormwater basins.

The new proposal would lower the maximum fee credit from 100 percent to 75 percent.

Hammock said the owner of a 1-acre commercial property might be paying $75 an acre under the current fee credit system. If the fee credit revisions are enacted, that property owner might be paying $90 an acre, he said.

Stormwater-control devices have changed during the past few decades, which is why the fee structure needs to changed, Hammock said.

Basins built in the 1980s or 1990s only addressed flood control and did not protect water quality by filtering pollutants because they weren’t required to, Hammock said. New basins help control water quality, but the fee credit rules don’t offer additional incentives for new basins, he said.

Stormwater fee credits primarily affect commercial properties, because single-family developments did not have to include basins until 2008.

The stormwater fees are assessed on city and county properties. But since most properties affected are within the city, the city is the driving force behind seeking changes to the fee structure.

The City Council and the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners might vote on the proposed changes as early as next month. The fee credit revisions could be considered during the city and county budgeting process.

RAMSEY can be reached at [email protected].