09-26-16 Utilities - Laserfiche WebLink

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Dame is one (1) of the largest users of South Bend's system and it is important that we find an economically feasible way to handle this and will help however we can during this process. Chuck McCoy 1857, Overlook Court South Bend, stated he is a senior citizen and they built a new home in South Bend to retire. He stated this is the most devastating news they have received. He stated his background is in engineering. Mr. McCoy stated all the Councilmembers should really read the consent decree because the City is really bound to what it says and are designing towards it. It is not flexible at all. The only flexibility is how long it can take to do it. At this point if we follow the three point seven (3.7 %) a person will pay more in a sewer bill than their taxes. That doesn't make any sense. Mr. McCoy stated that when Mayor Luecke announced this to the public in the December of 2011 this was a $509 million project of which $107 million had already been spent. We have gone from a $400 million remainder to $800 million remainder and that doesn't make sense. It is happening because the Public Works Department has to do exactly what the consent decree states and there is no flexibility. He stated he is very concerned as a citizen and will voice his opinion until this comes to a resolution. Committeemember Dr. Fred Ferlic asked Mr. Horvath how much money outside of the CSO they have projected on projects over the next ten (10) years. Mr. Horvath responded he doesn't have a firm number but it is probably around $3 million a year. We still have to keep the City up and running in all the other areas. Committee Chair Dr. Varner stated people are finally starting to understand what is going on and getting interested. We will get more updates once an alternative plan is decided upon. Bill No. 48 -16 — Development fees Committee Chair Dr. Varner stated this a new proposal in response to the compact fees issue. Eric Horvath, Public Works Director with offices on the 13th Floor of the County -City Building, served as the petitioner of this bill. He stated he will be as brief as he can. We went back and looked at the original ordinance and we originally set the September 1St date to talk to interested parties. In the meantime we did start a discussion with Barnes and Thornburg who does utility work for cities across Indiana and also a financial consultant. Working with them, they recommended we get away from compact fees and assessments and move towards a system development charge. They also recommended we replace the compact fees with a surcharge. It is a much simpler system and that is what this ordinance does. It completely eliminates compact fees and puts a fourteen percent (14 %) surcharge on sewer the way it is currently written. In terms of assessments, sewer used to be square footage of property and water was lineal foot of frontage. We now take essentially the asset value of our POTW or our Water Works and we take the depreciation that occurs and then subtract the debt that we owe and get a value and divided by the number of equivalent residential units that we have in the system. This creates a cost per residential unit. It is essentially $1,145 per residential unit for sewer and $500 for water. There are two (2) other pieces as well. If the developer is an apartment complex, they pay that equivalent amount per unit. On the other uses such as commercial and industrial, we take the flow on that equivalent basis and divide it by their estimated flow to get an equivalent number of 7