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Revenue Would Support Projects
The city of Lexington is considering implementing a stormwater fee to help create revenue that can be put toward various stormwater projects throughout the city, rather than having the costs for those projects being paid from the city’s general fund.
The city began looking into the possibility of implementing a stormwater fee in 2019, undertaking a study that calculated the amount of impervious area within the city. Impervious areas include houses, buildings, decks, driveways, roads, pools and any other surface that leads to stormwater runoff.
At its April 4 meeting, City Council was given a presentation about the impervious areas of the city and asked questions of City Manager Jim Halasz and Hunter Young, a consultant who is advising the city on this process.
In his report to Council, Halasz suggested creating a fee that would generate between $500,000 and $700,000 in annual revenues for the city. The money from the fees would be put toward a number of upcoming stormwater projects in the city, including improvements to the stormwater systems on White and Diamond streets, which are estimated to cost $780,000 and $800,000, respectively.
The exact rate for the fee has not been determined yet, and Halasz said that the goal is to have a recommended fee ready by the first meeting in June to present to Council.
The fee will be set based on a number of square feet of impervious surface per unit within the city, as is the practice among several other localities that have implemented similar fees.
The cities of Harrisonburg, Roanoke, Charlottesville and Staunton all set the area of impervious surface at 500 square feet, with fees ranging from $1.05 to $6 per 500 square feet. In addition to determining the dollar amount for the fee, Young will also be looking at whether Lexington would be best served by basing the fee around a 500-square-foot area or using a smaller area, such as 200 or 250 square feet.
In response to a question from Council member Charles Aligood, Halasz informed the Council that this fee would apply to all buildings in Lexington, including churches, schools, the hospital and City Hall.
“The city pays a water bill just like any other customer,” he said. “The reason we do that is to pay for the support of the water system and the wastewater system. Anyone who’s a customer provides an impact on the system or a demand on the system, so that customer has to pay their equal share of the demand on the water system. The same is true of the stormwater utility. If you create a demand on that utility, then you need to pay for your share of that demand. Because the stormwater is, in fact, a utility, it has to be supported by the fees of the customers of that utility. All of the customers.”
Halasz’s other recommendation for the fee is to implement it in phases rather than all at once.
He recommended beginning with charging customers 25 percent of the total fee in January of 2025, leaving that in place for six months, then adding the next 25 percent in July of 2025. The process would continue in six-month increments, with the full fee being implemented in July of 2026.
Vice Mayor Marilyn Alexander encouraged Council members to be proactive in educating citizens on the fee and what it will be used for.
“I think, whatever we do and whenever we do it, we need to do an excellent job of educating the public on why this is [happening],” she said, “because this will be going hand in hand with another 8 percent increase in the water bill, and they’re already upset about that. So we need to be gentle about it and really explain why this is important.”
