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Fr m: Rachael DILLMAN' To: BROWN, Dan; ESD; GOODWIN, Len Date: 9/19/03 9:03AM Subject: MWMC SDC - Eugene Weekly article Eugene Weekly - September 18th, 2003 (by reporter Alan Pittman?) DEVELOPERS PUSH FEES ONTO HOMEOWNERR Your sewer bill could go up to fund developer profits after the Lane County Home Builders Association (HBA) derailed a fee increase for developers. The local sewer system and sewage plant is funded by a mix of sewer fees and system development charges (SDCs) on developers to account for the cost of serving new growth. To better account for the cost of growth, sewer managers this summer proposed that home builders pay a $837 SDC per new home to hook up, The HBA threatened to take legal action and the sewer managers, this month backed down, agreeing to suspend $300 of the fee for a year, pending a consultant and citizen committee study. Susan Smith, manager of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission (MWMC), says the HBA attack on the SDCs became very personal. "There's a lot of material that attacks me personally and our staff." But she said HBA lobbyist Roxie Cuellar recently publicly apologized for the attacks at a MWMC meeting. Smith says if the sewage system can't collect enough SDCs from developers to pay for needed capacity projects, the difference may have to come from homeowners' sewage bills. "It is a zero-sum game," she says. "We have to build the capacity projects that are needed" to comply with environmental regulations. "The [homeowner] fees could go up." At stake is big money. By heading off the developer fee increase this year, homeowners may have to make up about $200,000 in lost SDC revenue down the line. If the developers don't pay their share in later years, homeowners could be out millions of dollars in higher sewer rates. The Eugene City Council will discuss approval of the MWMC's proposal to suspend the SDC increase on Sept. 22, with a council vote scheduled for Sept. 24. Smith says the current fee system that HBA opposes was established by a diverse citizen committee in 1997 that looked at the "complex" balance between homeowner fees and developer charges. "For the last six years, we've had a methodology that seemed to work," Smith says. The MWMC is now asking for volunteers to serve on the new citizen study committee formed in response to the HBA threats. Applications are available at the MWMC office at Springfield City Hall. -- AP