HomeMy WebLinkAbout1989 12 18 City Commission Workshop Minutes
.
WORKSHOP MEETING
CITY COMMISSION
CITY OF WINTER SPRINGS
DECEMBER 18, 1989
The Workshop Meeting followed the Special Meeting of December 18, 1989. The meeting
was called to order by Mayor Leanne M. Grove, and all were present.
Winter Springs Water and Sewer-Discussion of User Fees and Charges:
Manager Rozansky explained that as a result of the November 13, 1989 meeting where
the Commission took the position that the $6.30 connection fee that was adopted by
Ordinance No. 449 did not apply to developers already having developer agreements,
the Commission wanted to have a meeting to see where and how those funds that were
placed in the budget in anticipation of these receipts could be replaced. In this
year's Budget there are $477,000 dollars. Mr. Zaudtke is on vacation and Attorney
Kruppenbacher was not present either.
Manager Rozansky explained the only way we could anticipate to replace those monies
are with four options:
.
1. Raise the Connection Fees and charge everyone the $6.30.
2. Raise the Reservation Fee. That is the $.35 cent fee that is to pay for the
debt service and the principal and interest on the bonds.
3. Have a Rate Study, and that would mean an increase in our water and sewer bills.
4. Do not do anything, just take this out of the Budget, remove the reclaimed water
system. What it would actually take out is $360,000 for sewer projects that are
in this Budget. We had planned to relocate the chlorine system at Wastewater
Treatment Plant,$40,000; Water pump system, $10,000; temporary sludge storage
$10,000; re-use system, Phase 1, $300,000; that all comes to $360,000; the other
$117,000 has been allocated to doing improvements to the water system.
Manager Rozansky explained some of the definitions. Service availability charge, it
is a charge made by the City to defray a portion of the capital costs of the water
treatment plant or sewer treatment plant owned by the City.
Synonomous fees are Connection Fees, that is the $6.30 we are talking about. Impact
fees and plant capacity charges. In various documents throughout the City we have all
of those terms referring to the same thing. In Ord. No. 449 the $6.30 is a connection
charge.
A user, a customer, that is physically connected to the facilities. In our opinion,
that is a user. When the Ordinance was applied in the first place, the developers
that had the agreements, in our opinion, were not users, they simply were individuals
that had a portion put aside for whenever they wanted it. Then the Reservation
Charge, the charge assessed for reserving capacity of $.35 per gallon annually based
on the principal and interest on the bonds, divided by 1.5 m.g.d. that is the capacity
of the plant.
Commissioner Hoffmann asked in paying the service availability charge before it was
required, what does a developer buy? Mr. Harry Martin, Finance Director, answered
"assurance that his capacity will be available when he wanted it".
.
Manager Rozansky explained the reservation fee pays the debt service, interest and
principal on the debt service.
.
.
.
Workshop Meeting, City Commission, Dec. 18, 1989
Page 2
Commissioner Kulbes said he did not remember during the budget hearings any talk
about service availability charge being sent to those people who had reservation
charges. That was never discussed in any of our Budget Hearings, never explained
that that was a possibility.
Attorney Lang explained what we are talking about is the connection charge which is
paid at the time you enter into a developer's agreement, which can be substantially
more than 35 cents a gallon. The developer pays that at the time that they execute
that agreement, and its basically a charge to cover the capital cost of the capacity
that is subject to that agreement.
What has come up now is a policy question as to whether or not the Commission wants
to exercise their right under the developer agreement and go back and assess those
people who made a payment when they executed their developer agreement or whether the
City is just going to charge it prospectively to those people who execute developer
agreements after the time you increase the connection charge.
Commissioner Jacobs said he was upset because the ordinance was passed and then
the Staff obtained an attorney's opinion as to whether or not they could go back and
charge reservation fees.
Attorney Lang said what is in front of the Commission is a policy decision as to
whether the City wants to retroactively apply it, and the Workshop was to discuss
what are the consequences if you do not retroactively apply it, meaning if you do say
you are not going to collect the $477,000.
Commissioner Hoffmann said in his conversation with Mr. Zaudtke, he indicated that
had he shown the increased costs not due to expansion, just upgrading and Department
of Environmental Regulation regulations and divided that by the capacity that is being
used at the present time including developer agreements, that the increase in the
connection fee would even be larger than going to a total of $6.30. Rather than
that he showed the total and divided by the total capacity and came up with the
number $6.30.
Commissioner Hoffmann suggested having another meeting with Mr. Zaudtke present, and
have a concensus whether the Commission should reconsider whether these connection
fees should be applied retroactively to developer agreements which was voted on
November 13, 1989.
Attorney Lang said he would like to do a survey. It is a new issue that is emerging.
The far end of the spectrum is whether or not you can go back to people who have
already paid their connection charges and assessed them for DER requirements when
you have to upgrade your system, which means even those people who are already on
line, you would go back and increase their charge to cover that cost. He said "you
are somewhere back to the left of that as to whether or not legally you can raise a
connection charge after you have collected it from a developer". Attorney Lang said
he would try to have something by January 8th.
Discussion of Ord. 464, 465, 466 and 467:
.
.
.
Workshop Meeting, City Commission, Dec. 18, 1989
Page 3
Ordinance No. 464 was discussed and no changes were made. Ordinance No. 465 was
then discussed. The concensus was to expand it to include all zoning classifica-
tions, and include In Section 9-159, Conservation Easements.
Ord. No. 466 - Sidewalks: After discussion, the concensus of the Commission was
to add (b) to Section 9-221.
Ord. No. 467 - After discussion, it was decided to just upgrade the width of
private streets to 50 feet.
Ord. No. 471 - the recommendation of the Land Development Coordinator to the City
Manager on December 18, 1989 was accepted.
Meeting was adjourned 10:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary T. Norton,
City Clerk