Melissa Bailey File Photo
Starting as soon as next summer, homeowners might be getting an extra bill from the city. It’s a part of a plan designed to spread the cost of stormwater removal more equitably among property owners.
The plan would create a stormwater authority for the City of New Haven. Initially, it would be a new enterprise fund that can set up fees for the removal of stormwater in the city. Property owners would pay proportionally to how much stormwater runoff their property creates, with large impermeable parking lots costing the most.
It would mark a change from the current system, under which stormwater removal is paid for through property taxes.
Since a large part of New Haven comprises non-taxable property belonging to not-for-profits and schools, taxpaying homeowners and businesses have been footing the city’s whole stormwater removal. The new stormwater authority is designed to change that situation, according to Rob Smuts, the city’s chief administrative officer.
At Monday’s meeting of the Board of Aldermen, an ordinance amendment to create the stormwater authority was introduced. Smuts said he expects the authority could be in place by the start of the next fiscal year, July 1, 2011. The average homeowner would probably see an annual bill of $40 or $50, Smuts said.
A stormwater authority has been in the works for some time, Smuts said. In 2007, the state general assembly authorized creation of such authorities, and paid for four towns to study the issue. New Haven did such a study and found the plan would make sense.
Stormwater authorities are “pretty common in other parts of the country, but this would be the first in Connecticut,” Smuts said.
He offered four reasons a stormwater authority makes sense:
First, it will efficiently consolidate stormwater operations, which are currently shared by several departments. Smuts compared it to the city’s creation of the Solid Waste Authority, which saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said.
Second, the authority would make it easier for the city to comply with new and future environmental regulations. As a further environmental benefit, property owners would have a “direct incentive to improve their operations.” They will pay less if they mitigate their run off, he said.
Third, the authority would create a more equitable system. Currently, homeowners pay 59 percent of the cost of stormwater removal but have only 23 percent of the city’s impermeable surfaces. “So homeowners are essentially subsidizing the rest of the city,” Smuts said.
Fourth, the new fees would free up about $2 million from the general fund, Smuts said.
Paying for stormwater removal is “a significant liability on our books,” Smuts said. “This is a way of taking it off the books, having it so the average homeowner shoulders a much smaller part of the burden.”
Smuts said the city would not need new hires to run the authority; a staffer would move over from the engineering department. Fees would be assessed based on satellite imagery and on-site inspections of the impermeable surface area.
Stormwater removal is now a “hidden cost borne by taxpayers,” Smuts said. “What we’re doing is calling it out and saying theses costs exist. We’re making the people causing the costs pay for it.”