The Culver Town Council is updating its Sewer Rate Ordinance, and now they’re accommodating new development in the community.
During Tuesday night’s Culver Town Council meeting, an ordinance making a few changes from the previous version from 2014 were considered. The changes aren’t so much concerned with the sewer rates themselves as the fees applied to water lines installed as part of any new development project.
Town Manager Jonathan Leist says the lines previously went up to only four inches.
“We just based it off of the same price per inch as what we had for two and four inch water lines,” says Leist. “Basically what they’re paying for is the sewage capacity in our plant. So it kind of makes sense to follow the size of the water line for each of those.”
According to the discussion Tuesday night, Culver is leaving its sewer rate ordinance the same.
The few changes, however, involve a fee of several thousand dollars for developers installing water lines to access the town’s current system. For instance, a development with a six inch water line would be assessed a fee of $4,356. The larger the water line, the bigger the charge.
Rates were based on a development currently ongoing within the Culver community. Leist says that under the new language once a new water line has been constructed, the Town would take over the responsibility of maintaining it.
“I think, previously, there was a line left in about the town doing that work that I don’t think we’ve ever done,” says Leist. “For some reason that had ended up in it in 2014, but we just wanted to clean that up along with price issues since we had one of those where we just kind of had to figure it as we went last year.”
The ordinance was on first reading, Tuesday night. The Culver Town Council will hold a public hearing on the changes in July before the ordinance is approved on second and third reading.
The Town Council approved the changes on first reading, unanimously.
