City of Charlottesville Stormwater Management Fee

It’s a tax, but a useful tax.

The City’s infrastructure is crumbling (as is the country’s) and this is a reasonable way to address those concerns. There is so much old infrastructure in the City of Charlottesville (and Albemarle and everywhere else in the US) that at some point, it’s reasonable to start fixing it. If you live in an older home, you may want to consider thinking about the line from the house to the street.

Charlottesville Tomorrow reports:

Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, property owners will be billed a twice-yearly fee of $1.20 per 500 square feet of impervious surface on a site. The money will allow the city to increase funding for its water resources protection program from $945,000 a year to more than $2.5 million.

If this tax is actually applied to upgrading water and sewer infrastructure and is sunset after a reasonable period of time (10 years?) it makes sense to have property owners (churches have impervious surfaces, too) contribute.

For those who own or are contemplating owning property in the City (may I suggest 1507 Gentry? (no longer available)) go to the City of Charlottesville’s nifty new GIS page and look at the bottom for an estimate of how much your storm water fee will be.

(note: the “click here” goes here)