Agenda - Council - 10/10/2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE CONTINUATION OF DISCUSSION OF THE STORM DRAINAGE UTILITY Brian E. Olson, City Engineer Background: The Council adopted Ordinance 00-01 creating a storm drainage utility on January 11, 2000. Pursuant to Ordinance 00-01, the Council adopted Resolution 00-06-165 establishing the storm drainage utility rates and charges. On July 25, 2000 the Council adopted Ordinance 00-10 which Ordinance amended Ordinance 00-01. Observations: Pursuant to City Council direction on September 26, 2000, Staff has reviewed the runoff · calculations for Ve-Ve, Inc. located at 14047 Azurite Street NW as it relates to a single family residential home that has 2,500 s.f. of impervious area. Ve-Ve, Inc. is located on a property that is 2.08 acres in size. According the aerial photograph it has an impervious area, which includes compacted gravel parking areas, equal to 65,044 s.f. This amounts to over 26 times more impervious area than a residential property with 2,500 s.f. of impervious area. Ve-Ve, Inc. has a storm drainage utility fee of $185.98 per quarter and a residential parcel has a storm drainage utility fee of $6.30 per quarter. Ve-Ve, Inc. pays about 29 times more than a residential property. Another issue that arose during the public hearing was the question of why we can't collect this on the property tax levy. The premise behind the storm drainage utility is that the property that produces more of the problem pays more of the costs associated with the storm sewer. Attached to this case are some graphs that illustrate the impacts to single family residential property owners of collecting this money by the property taxes. Although commercial and industrial property pay a higher tax rate than residential property, they only pay for approximately 27% of the property tax levy and residential property taxes pay approximately 72%. Under the storm drainage utility, commercial and industrial property pay for approximately 57% and residential property produces 43% of the costs of maintaining the storm sewer system. If the money collected through the storm drainage utility was collected with the tax levy and as a function of property value, the residential community would pick up an additional $98,000. Since there is approximately 5,600 residential properties throughout the City of Ramsey, this equates to an ADDITIONAL $17.50 per residence on average. Staff Recommendation: Based on the revenue/expenditure projection along with the need for a dedicated source of revenue for storm sewer projects throughout the City, City Staff recommends that the rates remain as previously presented. \\RA_FSl\VOl.l\users\City Shared File\Engineeringk2000 Projects\Storm Drainage Utility\Cases\phl01000cc.doc