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Revenue To Fund Stormwater System Improvements
Following a pair of public hearings, Lexington City Council last week unanimously voted to establish a stormwater fund for the city and to begin collecting a stormwater fee starting in July of 2025.
The monthly fee, which will initially be 30 cents for every 250 square feet of impervious surface, such as rooftops and driveways where water can’t get into the ground and runs into the city’s stormwater system, will be included with the water and sewer bills that the city sends out each month. The fee will increase to 60 cents in 2026.
The money collected from the fee will be put into the stormwater fund and will be used to pay for improvements to the city’s stormwater system. That 60-cent rate will raise an estimated $400,000 per year.
Everyone who receives a water bill from the city will have to pay the fee, though credits are available for anyone with an engineered drainage system in place that meets Virginia Department of Envi-
, page B10 ronmental Quality standards and regulations. The city set a maximum credit of 50 percent, and will use the DEQ’s standards to determine what percentage any water customers with such a system will receive.
Council member Nicholas Betts asked if there would be any sort of appeal process for any surfaces that may have been determined by the city to be impervious that were not or any other similar concerns about the calculation of the fee.
City Manager Tom Carroll said that there was a process by which the owner could make an administrative appeal to the city, and if they were unsatisfied with the determination of that appeal, they could appeal to the circuit court.
Council member David Sigler asked what would be done for billing owners of apartment buildings which may house several different residents. Carroll explained that the property owner would be responsible for the fee as they are for all utilities, and it would be up to them how that would be distributed to the tenants.
During the public hearing, Don Clooney, who lives on Oak View Drive, also expressed a concern about what would or not constitute impervious surfaces, and wondered if there was a way to “encouraging people down the road to eliminate impervious [surfaces] and go to pervious types of drainage.”
“That, I think, really ought to be the goal, to try not to penalize people, but try to encourage them to go to pervious systems,” he said. “I would say, if council or staff would look at ways of crediting or recognizing people who might want to shift down the road to not be part of the problem.”
Clooney was the only person from the public who addressed the issue at last week’s Council meeting, but several residents did come out to the four listening sessions that the city held in November on the proposed fee. Carroll told The News-Gazette that he felt it was “worth investing the time” in having those sessions to hear from people and take time to answer questions and get feedback on the proposed fee. He also said that if anyone had any questions or concerns about the fee who wasn’t able to attend the listening sessions or last week’s Council meeting, they could reach out to the city.
