Article content
Changes to Windsor’s stormwater fee will see homeowners paying less for rainfall runoff starting next year — but commercial and industrial property owners will be paying more.
City council on Monday unanimously approved a plan to base stormwater fees on the amount of impervious area on a property — hard surfaces that limit rainwater absorption — rather than on system usage. The new fee calculation will take effect on Jan. 1.
Advertisement 2
Article content
“This is all about equity and fairness,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told reporters. “Residents will actually pay less on their Enwin bill when this plan is implemented. Right now they are paying too much for the coverage of stormwater.
“We’re going to bring Home Depots, and Costcos, and people with large parking lots on board to pay their fair share, which will be a net reduction for residents.”
Under the new plan, wastewater and stormwater will appear as separate line items on Enwin bills, Dilkens said.
The city currently uses a sewer surcharge fee to fund wastewater and stormwater projects. Residents can expect to save between $5 and $73 on those fees in 2025, a report to council said.
Impermeable surface areas that will be used to calculate the fee include buildings, pavement, compacted ground, and parking lots. That means the stormwater fee for large industrial or commercial properties will increase.
Those increases, the report said, “are deemed proportionally reasonable and fair, since these properties produce a notably higher volume of … runoff, which is captured and managed by the city’s stormwater management system.”
Advertisement 3
Article content
The change will leave the Windsor Port Authority, which currently pays about $300 per year in municipal stormwater fees, on the hook for hundreds of thousands more annually, even though most of the port’s 60 acres are not hooked up to the city’s system.
“We are in agreement that there is a need for this program,” port authority president and CEO Steve Salmons told council. “We also point out that where we contribute to this system, we ought to pay our fair share.
“But where there’s no contribution, no service, there ought to be a discount.”
The new surcharge plan allows property owners who collect and manage their own stormwater, like the port authority, to apply for a credit of up to 50 per cent of the fee. Even with that credit, the port authority will owe $300,000 per year, said Salmons, who argued for a higher discount.
With the credit, he said, “there’s an implicit recognition that you ought not pay for the lands that aren’t contributing to the system. Extend that logic — if the port is contributing zero, then ought not the credit also be extended?”
Outside council chambers, Salmons told reporters the port authority had “hit a wall” and will review what options it has to challenge council’s decision.
Advertisement 4
Article content
“At the moment, we don’t have a conclusion yet or are ready to comment on that,” he said.
During Monday’s meeting, Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie described the change, which has been in the works for several years, as “a massive step in the right direction.
“One of the greatest things about Windsor and Essex County is we’re surrounded by water,” he said. “With that wonderful amenity and flat topography, we have some real challenges in our region as well.
“We’ve embarked on this several-year study to look at the different ways we could right-size our fee structure and get that balance right, so there’s enough revenue in the system for us to address those challenges”
Thousands of city basements flooded during storms in 2016 and 2017, which caused more than $300 million in insurance claims in Windsor and Tecumseh.
Recommended from Editorial
The current sewer surcharge has been in place since 1994, the report said. Before that, stormwater and sewage collection and treatment costs were funded by property taxes, which are based on property assessment values.
The city’s capital program for wastewater and stormwater projects has grown from roughly $5 million in 2002 to nearly $63 million this year. The city also leverages provincial and federal grants to fund costs associated with managing, maintaining, and replacing sanitary and stormwater sewer infrastructure.
Article content
