Flooded streets: City may create fee to fix storm drains Flooded streets: City may create fee to fix storm drains (January 28, 2004)

By Rebecca Wallace

Almanac Staff Writer

With many streets in town flooding on rainy days, Menlo Park city officials are looking into charging property owners a fee to pay for $8.2 million in storm-drain upgrades.

Under state Proposition 218, the fee would have to be approved by a simple majority of the property owners being charged, said city Public Works Director Kent Steffens. The fee would cover storm-drain upgrades in eight parts of town.

At this point, officials are estimating that the city would collect the fees over 20 years, with the work financed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

How much would owners of residential and commercial property pay? City officials are still looking at a range of possibilities. One factor is whether the city would kick in a contribution from its general fund.

Several sample scenarios presented by Mr. Steffens to the City Council on January 20 focused on one site of regular flooding: Middlefield Road, where deluges periodically require road closures at Ravenswood and Oak Grove avenues.

One scenario, looking at average-sized properties, assumes no general-fund contributions. In that case, owners of residential property whose land fronts on the project area could pay $124 per year. Owners whose residential land contributes water flow to the project area, but isn't located in it, could pay $83 annually. All other residential landowners could pay $12 per year.

For commercial property owners, the estimated figures are $1,494, $996 and $154 per year.

If the city contributes $2 million for the storm-drain work, the fees would drop. For example, the Middlefield Road scenario would include annual fees for residential landowners ranging from $59 to $9. Fees for commercial land would range from $712 to $116, Mr. Steffens said.

Other areas earmarked for storm drainage upgrades include Menalto, Middle and Euclid avenues, and Magnolia Drive at Stanford Court.

Ideally, fees would be charged for developed properties based on the amount of impervious area, as is done with the storm water regulatory compliance fee, Mr. Steffens said.

Property owners now pay a fee of $5.25 per year per 1,000 square feet of impervious area, to help ensure that water quality meets environmental standards. That fee was established in 1998 and has never been raised, Mr. Steffens said.

The regulatory fee cannot be used for capital upgrades, Mr. Steffens said. The city now upgrades its storm-drainage system only in response to complaints and does not have a broad-based program, he said.

Because an election would be costly and time-consuming -- and getting voters to approve a new fee during a recession could be dicey -- both Mr. Steffens and City Council members agreed that it would make sense to have staff look into polling of property owners before pursuing an election. An election would most likely use mail-in ballots.

"Polling will tell us what the citizenry will tolerate," Mayor Lee Duboc said.
INFORMATION

The full staff report on the storm-drainage system in Menlo Park is available at menlopark.org. Click on "City Council" and go to the January 20 meeting agenda.

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