Adopted Ordinance No. 936 establishes a new Article 5, of Chapter 15 of the Westwood Municipal Code for a storm water utility, including the creation, administration, operating budget, revenue, appeal process, and fee collection process.
Stormwater is water from the rain. As rains falls it is either absorbed into the ground or runs downhill and is collected and managed in the city's stormwater infrastructure.
Impervious surfaces, such as rooftops and pavement, prevent water from absorbing into the ground and causes runoff. Unmanaged stormwater runoff threatens public health and safety as it can carry contaminants such as garbage, heavy metals and other pollutants.
The City of Westwood has stormwater infrastructure to manage runoff, but the pipes and structures are aging and will be in need repair or replacement in the near future. The City of Westwood also operates an annual leaf pick-up program in the fall, which also helps in the management of the city’s stormwater system.
The city's stormwater infrastructure is expensive to repair and replace. In previous years, maintenance of the city’s storm drains and storm sewer system as well as operation of the fall leaf pick-up program was paid out of the city’s General Fund, which is primarily revenue from property and sales taxes. Since the city's budgeted General Fund pays for a wide variety of city services, the storm water system often does not receive the necessary funds to make needed improvements and maintenance.
Many area cities have created stormwater utilities to maintain and repair existing storm drainage system components (storm sewer pipes, street inlets, curb drainage, etc.) and to fund costs associated with compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act. Stormwater utilities have been used in Kansas cities since 1990.
The stormwater system in Westwood has both immediate and long term needs for repairs and maintenance. To finance this investment the city implemented a stormwater service management fee in 2013 which initially will generate about $95,000 in revenue annually. The revenue from the fee will only be used to fund stormwater improvements such as replacing stormwater pipes, street inlets, curbs and gutters, and the operation of the city's annual leaf pick-up program.
A stormwater utility and the assessment of a fee is an attempt to spread the costs of maintaining the city’s infrastructure across all entities and properties that both contribute to the drainage issues and benefit from storm drainage improvements and system maintenance. Because the stormwater drainage system’s challenges are directly attributable to the amount of impervious surface, the stormwater management service fee is based on the amount of stormwater run-off that comes from each property in the city.
A stormwater service management service fee is not a tax; as such the new fee will be assessed across all properties – even those that are tax exempt such as the properties owned by The University of Kansas Hospital Authority and the Shawnee Mission School District, as well as church-owned properties and city-owned properties.
The fee is calculated based on the square footage of a property’s impervious surface area. Impervious surface area includes buildings, patios, pools and driveways and other hard surface areas. Yard areas with grass and plants and other pervious areas where rain water can soak into the ground is not included in the fee calculation.
Measuring the impervious surface of individual properties is the most equitable way to determine stormwater runoff volume.
Westwood's stormwater service management fee will appear on each property tax bill, just like an assessment fee currently appears on the property tax bill for residential trash service.