Submitted by Bill Schrimpf
The City of Reno is in need of a stormwater utility, which means a new fee will be levied against property owners. A new fee is never popular, but taking care of aging infrastructure is essential, and the existing method is insufficient. The current method needs more funding for management, daily operations and, most importantly, infrastructure maintenance.
We like to blame developers for creating the problem, but that is a red-herring argument. Most of the large projects the City has identified relate to making sure existing infrastructure built decades ago does not fail when we need it.
About a year ago, the city released proposed ordinances to create a stormwater utility. It had many problems, and the city heard from businesses and private citizens. To their credit, the city and its consultant, Raftelis, made some improvements. More is needed, though.
The City Council Meeting on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, is the first step to making the existing proposal law. I’ll be there, will you? Check out the Zoom option
The fee will be implemented on January 1, 2025, meaning our first stormwater utility bills will arrive around September 2024.
Stormwater impact on drainage systems is related to impervious surfaces on a property, and the fee is calculated accordingly.
The good
It will help ensure our infrastructure can handle major events such as rain or snow. The collected fees can only be used for stormwater facilities; the money cannot go to places like the general fund.
There are incentives to encourage new and existing developments to reduce the impact on stormwater infrastructure. Low-income households can have the fee reduced. Ramp-up periods for businesses and owners of leased property (in some cases) can pass the cost to occupants of the property, similar to how a tenant sometimes pays for trash removal.
The bad
Single-family residential properties pay a flat fee, which means large, generally wealthy households will proportionally pay less even though their impact on the system is greater. A quick look at two Reno single-family properties shows that a property worth $1,500,000 and 10,000 feet of impervious surface will pay proportionally 141% less than a property worth $488,000 with 1782 feet of impervious surface.
The fee will increase yearly, forever. No language requires the City to review actual needs. We currently pay $3.50/mo to the sewer utility for a stormwater system, which will remain the same. Fixed-income houses cannot have fees reduced if they do not qualify for low-income programs.
The education credit requires schools (private and public) to have a curriculum related to stormwater to receive the credit. Reno should refrain from involving itself in the school curriculum.
Businesses – buckle up! The self-storage by my house will get a new bill of $4116 per quarter. It’s a good thing you get a three-year ramp-up period to adjust. If you own a single-family parcel, you get a new bill starting at $24.90 every quarter.
The bottom line is that although the proposed ordinances are problematic, they are less so than letting our infrastructure fail.
Bill Schrimpf is a local, born and raised in Reno. He actively works with elected representatives, offering new points of view while striving for polite and professional public discourse. Bill volunteers on the Ward 1 Neighbor Advisory Board. He attends and comments regularly at City Council meetings. Professionally, Bill is an IT Director working in the “cloud” and is a licensed Real Estate Agent. Bill’s favorite thing about Reno is being outside, enjoying our 300 days of sunshine.
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