(a) Purpose. The purpose of the overflow abatement charge, that is charged in addition to the capacity and commodity charge, is as follows:
(1) To raise revenue to comply with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s issued findings and orders made against the City.
(2) To pay for, in part, the establishment and implementation of a plan to eliminate sanitary and combined sewer overflows, including design, coordination, construction, management, operation, maintenance, inspection and enforcement.
(3) To improve the public health, safety, and welfare by providing for the safe and efficient capture and conveyance of storm water runoff and the correction of storm water problems, and
(4) To reduce water pollution within the corporate limits and those premises outside the corporate limits serviced by the City’s sanitary sewer system by eliminating overflow conditions.
(b) Development of Plans. The City Engineer, under the authority of Section 139.02 and this section shall develop a plan and recommend projects utilizing funds generated by the overflow abatement charge to eliminate combined sewer overflows and to generally bring the City into compliance with the findings and orders issued against the City by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
(c) Application of Fee. This fee will be considered a sanitary sewer fee that is to be charged, in addition to any capacity or commodity charge, to any real property having impervious area, however slight, that is located inside the corporate limits of the City, regardless if served by direct connection or not to the City’s sanitary sewer system or to a separate storm sewer, and to any real property that is located outside the corporate limits that is utilizing the City’s sanitary sewer.
(d) Responsible Party for Payment.
(1) Under this section, the subsequent terms will be defined as follows:
A. Commercial property - Any property, whether privately or publicly owned, where such property is or was developed for, in full or in part, or on such property there is engaged, the business or activity of buying, selling, trading or exchanging products, goods, services, or crop, either for profit or not for profit. For the purpose of this definition, services include, but are not limited to the providing of education. Also, “commercial property” means any property not otherwise clearly fitting into the classification of residential or industrial property.
B. Common Area - Impervious areas on a premise such as driveways, private streets, parking lots and the like utilize by tenants, guests, or owners.
C. Industrial property - Any property, whether privately or publicly owned, where such property is or was developed for, in full or in part, or on such property there is engaged, the business or activity of developing, manufacturing, constructing, producing or assembling any product, good, or service either for profit or not for profit.
D. Impervious surface - Surfaces on or in a lot or parcel of real property that substantially reduces the rate of infiltration of storm water into the earth.
E. Residential property - Any single-family unit, whether privately or publicly owned, standing alone or contained within a multiple- family dwelling or mixed-use building. This includes, but is not limited to, containment within duplex units, condominium units, apartment units, manufactured homes and the like. This also includes residential dwellings upon manufactured home communities or courts.
(2) For residential, commercial and industrial properties where the overflow abatement charge is applicable pursuant to subsection (c) hereof, the party that will be assessed and deemed responsible for the overflow abatement charge will be determined utilizing utility billing information for such property. The City will determine the responsible party for payment as being the party contracting for any City utility service on said premises. The primary contracted utility service to be used for identifying the responsible party for payment will be the water meter utilized by the City for billing purposes. Responsible parties for payment for properties without individual water meters, such as where master meters are used, will be identified utilizing other identifiable City utility services, such as electric meters. In the case of commercial and industrial property, where no such contract or meters exists, then the owner of the property, as identified by property tax records found in the office of the Henry County (Ohio) Auditor, will be charged as the responsible party for payment. In the event that impervious areas exist in common areas, the owner of the common areas shall be the responsible party for payment of those common areas.
(e) Rate. An overflow abatement charge, charged in addition to the capacity and commodity charge, is assessed monthly where the overflow abatement charge is applicable pursuant to subsection (c) hereof. The overflow abatement charge will incorporate a fee to serve as a just and equitable contribution to the overflow abatement resolution and is calculated to reflect the estimated amount of stormwater runoff created by such properties.
The City has calculated the average impervious surface of a single-family residential property within the City to be 3009 square feet. For purposes of calculating the water abatement charge, one Equivalent Residential Unit (“ERU”) shall herein be equal to 3009 square feet of impervious surface.
Each residential property where the overflow abatement charge is applicable pursuant to subsection (c) hereof, shall be assigned one ERU. The fee schedule for residential properties is as established in this subsection (e).
The total number of ERU’s of each commercial or industrial property where the overflow abatement charge is applicable pursuant to subsection (c) hereof, shall be calculated by determining the total square footage of impervious surface on each such property and dividing that total by 3009. In no case shall any commercial or industrial property have an ERU of less than one. The fee schedule for commercial and industrial properties is as established in this subsection (e).
The total square footage of impervious surface shall be measured by the City based on the records of the City Engineer, or through field examination or photo grammetric analysis; provided, however, that the owners of properties which are proposed for subdivision and/or development after the date of the adoption of this section shall include on all preliminary plan and final plan drawings submitted to the City in connection with the plan approval process, a certification as to the total square footage of impervious surface to be located on the property upon its development. Impervious area, as ascertained in this section shall be reported to the Utility Department, including any known changes thereto.
Regardless of any provision to the contrary, the Napoleon City area school district may, solely for the purpose of this overflow abatement charge, have all properties that are utilized for public education aggregated as one.
Effective with the first billing cycle in January in the year 2007, to be reflected in the January 1st billing of the year 2007, and for each billing cycle thereafter, the following rate structure shall be charged monthly as follows:
Residential Property
Inside Corporation Limits: | $9.50 |
Outside Corporation Limits: | $14.25 |
Commercial and Industrial Property
Tier ERU* Corp. Limit Corp. Limit | Inside Outside | ||
Less than | 3.0 | $9.50 | $14.25 |
One | 3.0 - 8.9 | $20.00 | $30.00 |
Two | 9.0 - 16.9 | $48.00 | $72.00 |
Three | 17.0 - 26.9 | $90.00 | $135.00 |
Four | 27.0 - 47.9 | $134.00 | $201.00 |
Five | 48.0 - 89.9 | $248.00 | $372.00 |
Six | 90.0 and above | $330.00 | $495.00 |
* ERU is calculated to the nearest one-tenth.
(f) Credit and Reduction.
(1) Commercial and industrial properties - Runoff is dramatically increased by the impervious surfaces created by development, such as buildings and pavement; however, some commercial and industrial properties where the overflow abatement charge is applicable pursuant to subsection (c) hereof have facilities on-site that reduce the amount or intensity of storm water that is discharged to the City’s storm water collection system. In order to be equitable and encourage future detention or retention to eliminate overflow conditions, these properties may be granted a reduction of up to eighty percent (80%) of their calculated ERU’s, subject to approval of an application made by the responsible party for payment to be submitted to the City Utility Department to be approved by the City Manager. In the case of multiple responsible parties for payment applying for credit in regard to common detention or retention, the City Manager may prorate said credit at any time.
(2) Multiple-level building reduction - In the case of multiple-level, multiple- unit buildings that contain at least one single family unit wherein one or more single family units occupy some or all of the space above or below another residential, commercial, or industrial unit, the responsible party for payment, as it applies to only the residential portion, may be granted a reduction of up to fifty percent (50%) of the overflow abatement charge, subject to approval of an application made by the responsible party for payment to the City Utility Department and approved by the City Manager.
(g) Appeal.
(1) Commercial and industrial properties - If a responsible party for payment feels that said responsible party for payment is entitled to credit or greater credit than conferred pursuant to subsection (f)(1) hereof, the responsible party may appeal to the City Manager, in writing, to see if a credit or greater credit is warranted. Appeals should be made in accordance with the established policies and procedures of the Water and Sewer Rules, Rule 26. The appeal must provide a discussion of the reason for the credit or additional credit, documentation, including hydraulic calculations, and must be in conformance with the City’s engineering standards. No more than an eighty percent (80%) ERU credit will be given to any commercial or industrial property.
(2) Multiple level buildings - If a responsible party for payment feels that said responsible party is entitled to a reduction in fees, pursuant to subsection (f)(2) hereof, the responsible party may appeal to the City Manager, in writing, to see if a reduction is warranted. Appeals should be made in accordance with the established policies and procedures of the Water and Sewer Rules, Rule 26. No more than a fifty percent (50%) reduction in the overflow abatement charge will be given to any residential unit.
(3) Subject to approval of application by the City Manager, a responsible party may be granted such credit or reduction in fees retroactively for up to sixty days prior to the application submission date, but the credit or reduction is not to precede the effective date of this section.
(h) Conflict with Rules for Water and Sewer Service. Where a conflict arises between this section and the Rules for Water and Sewer Service, this section shall control.
(i) Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, all buildings and land owned by this municipality are exempt from the overflow abatement charge; moreover, any overflow abatement charge billed to this municipality is exempt from collection.
(Ord. 023-07. Passed 3-19-07.)