2014-03-25_PWETC_Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

the credits pay for themselves overall. Mr. Johnson noted that this would also require a reduced cost for the City to have to treat water going into the system, as well as taxpayers having to pay for that treatment and have their fees increased accordingly. Mr. Schwartz advised that the assumption behind the proposed stormwater fee assumes that all residential lots are similar and each contribute a certain volume of stormwater runoff, and if that runoff was being treated and/or volumes reduced, there would be less of an impact on the citywide storm facilities as those properties handled their own runoff on their site. Mr. Schwartz noted that the City had a previous credit policy back to the inception of the stormwater utility; however, it was so outdated with current stormwater regulations, it no longer applied, and any application of that outdated policy had been resisted at the staff level in today's regulatory environment. Member Gjerdingen questioned if, given fixed costs for the stormwater system, whether a budget analysis had been performed by staff if everyone participated in the BMP program to ultimately reduce stormwater drainage; and to determine the impacts to the utility and whether this was a good model or not. Chair Vanderwall opined that it may be a fair thing to do; even recognizing that the first goal was not about revenue, but to reduce runoff Chair Vanderwall further opined that if stormwater out-take was reduced and fixed costs based on revenue, they would bring other costs up; but for those not participating, rates may actually increase across the board. Chair Vanderwall opined that, given the cost of a BMP compared to potential savings, he wasn't sure how much motivation a property owner would have, if a BMP had a 30-year payback. Mr. Culver suggested that staff could crunch some numbers to determine what if any losses would occur to the stormwater utility revenue. However, he suggested that if even 10-20% of commercial or residential property owners took advantage of the credit, they would be solving problems that the City could not fix with its stormwater fund revenue anyway, since the costs to handle all the existing issues were so many and extensive, current options were simply applying Band-Aids to the problem. Even if the City received extensive participation, with certified systems, Mr. Culver opined that if revenues were affected, it would still have a dramatic impact on the City's runoff Mr. Schwartz concurred, noting that the City had few opportunities to address problem areas on private properties or rights-of-way under today's regulatory environment, and this allowed the City access to private property to solve stormwater problems, with this providing some recognition and incentive for those efforts. Member DeBenedet provided a personal example based on his installation of a rain garden that deferred half of his roof area into it; however, the cost of the Page 6 of 14