A consultant in Burlington’s employ has released a proposal that would shift the cost burden for the city’s stormwater management program from homeowners to businesses.
Maia Setzer, a consultant with the firm Raftelis, approached Burlington’s city council on Monday to present this modified fee structure – which would force non-residential property owners to pay more than the going rate of $7 a month to keep the city’s stormwater management program above water.
Setzer noted that her proposed modifications stem from a decision which the council made in 2019 to charge property owners a fee that’s more in line with their actual contribution to the runoff and flooding which the program strives to address.
“The new rate structure,” she added, “will allow us to develop equities so that individual homeowners aren’t subsidizing problems that larger property owners are causing.”
To this end, Setzer said that her firm has come up with a proposal that will assess non-residential property owners an increased rate to account for their impervious surface – a term that refers to non-absorbent ground cover like concrete and asphalt. Setzer added that, under this proposed fee structure, residential customers would continue to pay the same flat rate of $7 a month that they’re presently billed. Yet, non-residential customers would be assessed rates based on their impervious surface, which will be calculated in increments of 2,950 square feet – or the amount of impervious surface which Raftelis ascribes to a typical Burlington home.
Setzer said that, at the behest of city staff, no single parcel will be liable for more than 100 of these Equivalent Residential Units. Non residential property owners will also have some time to brace themselves for the full impact of the proposed change, which would be phased in over a five year period after the implementation of the city’s next annual budget.
In any event, Setzer said that the modified fees would, conservatively, bring in an additional $75,000 during the fiscal year that begins this July.
“Ultimately,” she added, “you will see $500,000 a year being added to the storm water utility [in Year Five of the proposed fee structure].”
This plan to redistribute the program’s expense certainly seemed water-tight to Burlington’s mayor Jim Butler.
During Setzer’s presentation, Butler observed that the city will be able to bank the additional revenue that this fee change generates in order to fund large-scale drainage and flood control projects that currently exceed the budget of the self-sustained stormwater management program.
“Those with a greater impervious surface have more impact on that,” he added, “and that is why we ultimately started on this road.”
