01-14-19 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING January 14, 2019 fellow Council Members will vote in favor of this. Great planning and great working with our planning team within our City's Administration as others have said. I commend you for your outreach and your willingness to list and stand by these commitments. There are seven (7) statements but I was there and Councilmember Voorde was there at the open house meeting.These really show that you've taken the input of the neighbors to heart. I think what is going to happen here is going to be a win-win for everybody. You're going to have great properties to sell and to provide great living spaces. I would be surprised if there are any other locations adjacent to parks in the City of South Bend that are undeveloped. This is pretty cool. The outward facing of the Single-Family homes to the street of Howard Street, itself, is complimentary. I think you've hit a sweet spot in your planning and we are grateful for that in terms of the higher density but also something that is not going to be onerous on the neighborhood but will work for both the residents and neighbors as well. Great planning, great relationship and great outreach. Thank you for being a model in how this can and should be done. Councilmember Gavin Ferlic made a motion send Bill No. 59-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Councilmember Oliver Davis seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of nine (9) ayes. 61-18 PUBLIC HEARING ON AN ORDINANCE OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA, AMENDING CHAPTER 17 OF THE SOUTH BEND MUNICIPAL CODE TO ADD A NEW ARTICLE 14 ESTABLISHING INTERIM STORM WATER UTILITY RATES AND AMENDING CHAPTER 2, ARTICLE 14 TO CREATE A NEW FUND FOR THESE REVENUES TO BE KNOWN AS THE STORM SEWER FUND (#667) Councilmember Jake Teshka, chair of the Utilities Committee, reported that they met this afternoon and send this bill forward with no recommendation. Eric Horvath, Director of Public Works with offices located on the 13th floor of the County-City Building, South Bend, IN, served as the presenter for this bill. Mr. Horvath stated, I appreciate your consideration of this ordinance in front of you. As you know, this ordinance does two (2) things. It established Fund #667 which is the Storm Sewer Fund, but it also establishes a storm sewer user fee that would be associate with that and it would go into that Fund. As you know, we've had a number of conversations on this and it goes back to appropriations in our budget for the 2019 calendar year. We don't have a dedicated storm sewer infrastructure fund in the City of South Bend. However, having said that, there are significant needs. Those needs are only getting larger with the increasing intensity we have of storms that we've seen in the last number of years. What this ordinance does is it establishes a dedicated fund which will be a sustainable source of funding for future generations to use to address storm water issues throughout the City. In the past it is not that we didn't fund drainage at all, but we were constantly looking for a place to fund it. A good example was last year's budget. We had $500,000 in drainage projects that came from the Local Roads& Streets Fund. Again, if there were a lack of need for that funding,that would be ok but given the significant needs that we have of those funds as well for road funding, it makes it really difficult when you are trying to use drainage funds for other purposes and are borrowing and using these other funds. I feel it is important that we have a dedicated fund so that we don't take away from some of the needs of these other funds and their intended purpose. In October, the Council approved a Storm Water budget in Fund #667, this, essentially is the accompanying enabling ordinance that would go along with it. It set the rate at two dollars ($2) per resident per month as the user fee and also five dollars($5)per commercial industrial property per month. That is set to start in June 2019. This will be an interim rate until the City has the opportunity to look at impervious and pervious areas and looks at possible modification of those rates based on those calculations. That would be something we come back to the Council with at that time with an understanding of how those funds were calculated and what those new user rates are.But, for now, the ordinance is establishing two dollars ($2) per resident per month and five dollars ($5) per commercial industrial per month. 12