The long-debated question of whether Little Rock Wastewater Utility will charge sewer impact fees has been sent back to the city Board of Directors for a vote after the utility’s Rate Advisory Committee changed its mind about whether the fees are needed.
In 2009, members of the Rate Advisory Committee, a citizen panel created to look at possible fees and rate increases, proposed that the utility charge impact fees to developments that apply for permits for any new sewer connection. That proposal was part of five rate or fee increases intended to help pay for wastewater system expansion and repairs.
During the past several years, the proposed increases have been addressed piecemeal instead of as a package. In August, the question of impact fees finally went before city directors, who had questions about how the fees would work.
The board sent a list of 20 questions - including how the fees would be charged, who would be responsible for the revenue and how that revenue could be spent - to the Rate Advisory Committee, which convened once in September and again in October to address the issue.
Some members of that committee felt that impact fees were no longer reasonable because of other fees put in place that were not part of the 2009 proposal. So, after two meetings - one of which resulted in insults and yelling - the committee decided to not take a new vote on impact fees and instead told the wastewater’s Sanitary Sewer Committee to defer to the vote on the 2009 proposal.
But sewer committee Chairman Ken Griffey said the Rate Advisory Committee should have voted on the fee issue, and he sent a ballot to the eight members of the original committee who returned for the meetings this fall. The response he received from those members was 5-3 in favor of not charging the fees, a change from the vote in 2009 on the issue.
Griffey sent the new vote results to Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and city directors Dec. 18. Now it is up to them because any fee or rate increase must be approved by the Board of Directors. The agenda for the city board’s January meeting has not been set, but Ward 5 City Director Lance Hines anticipates the sewer impact fees being on it.
Rate Advisory Committee member Nell Matthews, president of the League of Women Voters, said she takes issue with the committee being asked to revote on the issue when it already gave its decision in 2009.
“I don’t really think the ballot is a very valid tool to express the opinion of the 2008 [and 2009] Rate Advisory Committee,” Matthews said. “It was attractive to people who opposed the impact fees to come express their opinion. We don’t want to have to rehash this. We don’t have the time or the energy right now. … Let’s just stay with what we came up with in 2008.”
Committee member Jim Lynch agreed with Matthews. He pointed out that the city board didn’t ask the committee whether it still supported impact fees, but only wanted clarifications on the matter.
But Griffey said the committee needed to provide some direction as to how citizens felt about impact fees. It was not acceptable for the committee to be at an impasse on the issue, he said.
“When they decided to take no action, well, no action doesn’t really complete the loop of what [it] was asked to do. We just simply wanted to make sure that some sort of input was provided to the board,” Griffey said. “Obviously, the vote was split, so that sends a strong message,too. Perhaps this issue needs to be reviewed. I think that having them go ahead and cast a vote gives the board at least some feedback from the citizens.”
Hines, who serves as the liaison between the sewer committee and the city board, said he agreed. He made the motion to send the issue back to the Rate Advisory Committee, and one question he wanted answered was, “Are impact fees still needed?”
“In my mind, when the whole thing was done, [the] Rate Advisory Committee’s recommendation to the board was five different items all to be done at one time in conjunction with each other. The board elected not to do all of them and changed another. So, my question was we had this one outstanding issue [of impact fees] and in my mind, since we put in the sewer replacement fee, it was kind of a game changer in that why should folks who have new sewer lines pay an impact fee on top of paying $1 per month to pay for other people’s replacement of old sewer lines?” Hines said. “It kind of seems like a double whammy.”
That was Rate Advisory Committee member Timothy Daters’ point, as well. The 2009 five-part recommendation included a stipulation that those parts should be enacted together, and because that didn’t happen, the impact fee issue is no longer relevant, Daters said.
One part of the 2009 proposal was to require property owners with service lines that leaked stormwater in or sewage out to repair those lines. Instead, a policy was adopted under which every customer pays $1 per month to help pay to fix older sewer lines.
“Charging a new-home owner, whose service line will last their lifetime without the need to be replaced, $1 per month is already an impact fee,” Daters said.
The Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods sent the Sanitary Sewer Committee a letter favoring impact fees, calling the idea “a forward looking policy to assure Little Rock’s future growth is high quality.”
“Financing of expensive future [sewer] infrastructure must be found to assure the quality of [the city’s] future growth. … Impact fees are a fair method of balancing the capital contributions of new customers to the sewer system backbone,” the letter said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/29/2013