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Park City readies to charge fee on most properties to combat stormwater

Jay Hamburger THE PARK RECORD

Park City officials want to introduce a fee on most properties to fund improvements meant to decrease the amount of pollutants that enter the watershed through runoff, something City Hall refers to as stormwater, and guard against flooding damage.

There is currently no such fee in Park City. Mayor Jack Thomas and the Park City Council will consider the fee during the budget talks that run from the spring until the early summer.

A fee would impact all property owners with impervious areas like driveways, rooftops and parking lots. Officials broke Park City into approximately 35 geographic zones and calculated the average impervious area for the residential properties in the zones. The average will be applied to the entire zone when calculating the fee. Calculations for commercial properties will be done individually.

According to City Hall, the amount owners of houses will pay will be as low as $6 monthly to as high as $42 each month. The fee would be set at $6 each month for multi-family residences with each dwelling paying the $6. Nearly all commercial property owners would pay as little as $6 and as much as $500 per month with upward of 4 percent of the owners of commercial properties paying a bill that could reach $2,500 each month, the City Hall information says.

As examples, Old Town would be set at the $6 monthly level, wide swaths of Park Meadows and Prospector would pay $18 per month and places like the upper reaches of Solamere and Empire Pass would be charged $42 each month.

The fee would start on July 1 if approved by the City Council. It is expected to raise approximately $1.8 million annually.

Clint McAffee, the public utilities director at City Hall, said the fee is needed to fund upgrades that are required to comply with the federal Clean Water Act.

McAffee said the funds that would be raised through the fee would cover the cost of infrastructure improvements and equipment. Projects that would be undertaken include pipe work, curbs, gutters and ditch maintenance. The funds would also be put toward personnel costs to hire inspectors who would monitor for illicit discharges into the watershed.

The projects could start in 2016 with work on Deer Valley Drive North, Solamere Drive, Lowell Avenue, Prospector Drive and Payday Drive.

More information is available on the City Hall website. The direct link to the page with stormwater information is: http://www.parkcity.org/departments/public-utilities/stormwater-division. Park City officials are also planning a mailing.

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