Drainage fee:
Open space for rain absorption will mean smaller bills for some.
Top commercial customers to see dramatic changes in city drainage fee.
Starting this month, the airport will save $15,000 a month. The Circuit of the Americas will save more than $19,000, and Flextronics America will see its $24,000 bill almost cut in half.
Austin’s new drainage fee, appearing on the November utility bills starting to show up in mailboxes, will bring a modest increase of about $1 for the typical homeowner, but the change in the formula provides big savings for some of the city’s largest utility customers.
After a judge last year declared the fee “invalid” over concerns about the way it was calculated, the city recently restructured the fee so that it would be more closely tied to each property’s impact on Austin’s stormwater drainage system. The money has gone to everything from clearing out culverts to floodplain buyouts.
The drainage fee will net the city about $83 million this year, up from $77 million the past budget year, as the city watershed protection department’s budget is growing. The fee funds upward of 95 percent of the department’s operating and capital budgets.
Though the City Council devoted much of its attention earlier this year to how the fee change would affect homeowners — even putting a oneyear cap on the fee increase for single-family properties after finding out some households would see their fee more than double — some commer-
cial property owners will also see dramatic changes.
Before, the fee for commercial properties was based solely on the amount of “impervious cover,” paved or otherwise developed areas that can’t absorb rainwater. Now, the fee for all properties in the city, including residential and multifamily properties, is based on both the amount of impervious cover and the percentage of the lot that is covered.
The way the formula works, commercial properties with abundant open space — like the airport and the Circuit of the Americas — are likely to see decreases in the drainage fee, but those with a lot that is well over half-developed would see an increase.
The vast majority of commercial properties in the city — 71 percent — will see an increase in the drainage fee. Among them are some of the biggest utility customers: Samsung will see about a $4,500 increase per month, and Applied Materials will pay about an extra $4,000.
Freescale and the owner of the 7700 West Parmer Lane business campus, two other large customers, would see almost no change in their $10,000plus drainage fees.
Another change: Tenants of commercial and multifamily buildings — not including residents of duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes — will now be billed for drainage by the property owner or manager rather than directly by the city.
All homeowners had been paying a $9.80-permonth drainage fee, as have tenants in multifamily buildings of six stories or less. Tenants in buildings with seven or more stories have been paying half that fee, or $4.90 per month.
Under the new fee structure, most tenants in multifamily properties can expect to see a decrease in the drainage fee, with the typical renter paying $5.27. Even with the one-year cap limiting the fee increase, most homeowners can expect to pay more, with the typical bill being $10.74.
To obtain the impervious cover data that is now used to individually calculate properties’ drainage fees, the city used aerial photographs taken in 2012 and updated the information using the city’s permitting database. New photographs were taken this year, but the impervious cover data won’t be ready until next year, said Craig Bell, an outreach coordinator in the city’s watershed protection department.
City staffers have already started receiving calls about the drainage fee changes, including from residents who are upset because the city hasn’t taken into account all the impervious cover on their property, which would increase their fee, Bell said.
“We have to say, ‘Do you really want us to address that or not?’” Bell said.