The Grantsville City Council reviewed possible changes to the city’s capital facilities plan that would result in an increase of the city’s water and sewer impact fees during a work meeting Wednesday evening.
Craig Neeley, who provides engineering services for Grantsville City, presented the increased rates for impact fees that would be paid by new developments. The city’s single family residential water impact fee would increase from $2,244.39 to $2,545.23.
The sewer impact fee for a newly constructed single family residential building would jump more significantly, from $1,916.17 to $3,257.22.
The replacement of the city’s antiquated cast iron water and sewer mains under Main Street is the main reason for the increase in impact fees. The Utah Department of Transportation has scheduled a reconstruction of Main Street for 2019 and the city intends to replace the water and sewer lines in conjunction with the state road project, said Grantsville City Mayor Brent Marshall.
The Main Street water main replacement project is expected to cost more than $3.5 million.
Grantsville City’s capital facilities plan projects future infrastructure projects for the next 20 years and determines the total cost of the projects and the proportion of the cost that can be attributed to growth.
The capital facilities plan was last updated in April 2013 and called for $16.8 million in culinary water-related projects and $7.3 million in wastewater-related projects. Those figures would be revised to $17.9 million for culinary water projects and $16.2 million in wastewater projects under the changes proposed by Neeley at Wednesday’s meeting.
A percentage of those costs are then set aside to be covered by impact fees from new development in the city based on how much of the project is caused by growth. The cost of the project covered by impact fees varies from a low of 11 percent to as high as 89 percent.
Grantsville City Councilman Tom Tripp said he believed some of the projects, like the Worthington Loop water pipeline, should place a higher burden on new development rather than current users. The total costs of the $371,258 project, which is already completed, would be offset by $163,354 in impact fees.
“A few of these projects look to me like they’re only needed because we’ve either had growth but we didn’t properly account for our impact fees or it should all be borne by the new people coming in,” Tripp said.
Neeley said the percentages could be changed but the city would be responsible for proving new growth was responsible for a larger portion of the project.
There will be a public hearing on the capital facilities plan and proposed water and sewer impact fee increase during the city council’s Sept. 21 meeting at 7 p.m. at Grantsville City Hall. The council is not expected to vote on the plan until its Oct. 5 meeting.