*knock on wood* Our utilities have been ok. We had a new central a/c system installed a year ago and added a heat pump to the system. We have already seen a return on savings there as we did not need to use the electric baseboard once last winter. We are on the budget plan and this time last year it was $222, it is now $181 (was down to $172 over the summer) but our anniversary is next month so they raised it trying to get the balance to $0.
We did get the bombshell over the summer of a new "stormwater management FEE*" starting in Jan 2024. It will be an avg of $20 per household and added to our quarterly sewer/garbage bills. My wife was asked to be on the committee (because of our history of flooding) and we attended one of the meetings last month to see their very pretty slide show. *scoffs* We left during Q&A as the engineers were talking around questions.
In a nutshell, the township has known about the M4S Federal Mandate for around 10 years but never did anything about it. Now that they are at the point of being fined 100s of 1000s of dollars by the Feds, they figure they better implement something.
Their proposal of the $20/month avg is based on sf of impervious property, i.e.: your roof, driveway, shed, porch, rock landscape(?), etc.. At one of her committee meetings, she inquired about the landscape and was told that rock was considered impervious as the stormwater can not soak into the ground. Um, it is rock, the water will flow through the cracks/crevices. I intend on fighting this if needed as we replaced the ~$500 of rubber mulch that was washed away in a flood with large river rock.
Based on the above, commercial properties will pay a higher monthly fee. The biggest warehouse in our township is estimated to pay $14,000/mo, malls/strip malls would be around $300/mo and fast food restaurants around $140/mo. When asked why ours is so high at $20/mo as neighboring townships are $6.75/mo to $12.00/mo, we were told it is because they waited so long to do anything and they estimate to need 5 million dollars in the first 5yrs to get a good foot hold on things. Several neighborhoods in our township have no storm drain systems at all, the water just runs down the street, eventually puddling/flooding low spots.
My wife was pissed when we got the letter in the mail, that was sent to all residents. It gave a very brief overview of the $20 fee and said that it was voted on by the committee members which were made up of the residents peers. She said they never voted on anything as they were told that the engineers came up with the $20 fee at the first meeting.
*FEE The main basis of their slideshow was that this is a FEE and not a TAX. Since it is a FEE, more of the burden is placed on the commercial properties who have a larger sf area of impervious property and churches and schools would NOT be exempt. Two things wrong with this. The first, at one of the meetings, a school district official commented how they do not have this in the budget and would simply raise school taxes. Now the homeowner is paying for their household and the schools. The second, a few weeks prior to our meeting it was announced on the local news that West Chester University filed an appeal in regards to the same FEES in their city. The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of PA ruled that this is not a FEE but a TAX and that the University was exempt. So now the precedent has been set statewide for other schools and churches to appeal, placing a large percentage of burden on the homeowners.
To top it all off, the letter announced that the first resident meeting to go over the proposal and answer questions was September 7th. It was 'leaked' on Facebook that the Board approved the policy at the monthly meeting on September 5th, citing that no residents were in attendance to vote against.
Thanks for letting me vent, I will now step down from my soap box.