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Mecklenburg County commissioners agreed Tuesday night to adopt a new four-tier stormwater rate structure – a week after Charlotte City Council opted not to make the change.
Charlotte residents will see their stormwater fees go up next year because the city is raising its share of the fees by 5 percent. But the commissioners' 7-1 decision Tuesday night means the county's share of those fees will fall for more than 60 percent of residential stormwater accounts.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services asked earlier this year to divide all residential accounts in the county into four groups based on the amount of driveway, rooftops or other impervious surface area on the property. Officials have said that in the current system, homes with larger amounts of the hard surfaces, which can lead to flooding in heavy downpours, had been subsidized by those with less.
The stormwater agency said the new system would make the fees more fair, including dropping fees for some residents with smaller properties and raising them for those with larger amounts of impervious area. For example, the original plan would have increased the bills for homes with 5,000 square feet or more of impervious area from $96 annually to more than $200.
The proposal had initially won support from staff in the county, the city of Charlotte and the town of Davidson. Davidson adopted the four-tier structure last week.
However, the Charlotte City Council voted to keep the current two-tier system for its portion of the fees, but raise all the rates by 5 percent. The decision was prompted, in part, by some members saying they didn't want to subject residents to steeper increases in the recession.
In response to the city's action, county administrators said last week that they also would keep the same stormwater rates, partly because they didn't want to create confusion by having a different system than the city's.
However, commissioners said Tuesday that adopting the four-tier structure would be more fair, noting that many residents would have seen their bills fall. Commissioner George Dunlap also noted that the board had previously delayed its reassessment of property values, and worried that also waiting to implement the stormwater change would be even more devastating for those who would ultimately see their stormwater bills rise.
