Greencastle Council approves stormwater user rate fees

While it is not ideal, the vast majority of people who showed up to Thursday's Greencastle City Council meeting understood the need for Greencastle officials to establish stormwater user rates and charges. 

Under the measure, which was approved by unanimous consent from council after a public hearing, residential homes will see an increase of $6 per month, while vacant lots will be charged $2 a month, while industries and businesses will pay a higher amount based off a formula, according to Greencastle mayor Lynda Dunbar. 

The stormwater utility and rates are needed to help Greencastle improve current infrastructure and make improvements all over the city.

"Residential folks will pay $6 a month and it will be on their water bill. If you have a vacant lot, you will pay $2 a month and billed once a month for your $24. For our commercial and our industrial, businesses and the university will all pay a lot more. We will take their space and divide it by 3,000 times $6. For some of them, it gets very sizeable. That is churches, schools, university, industries and that is how theirs will be calculated," Dunbar said.

Resident Jane Bray understood the need for the increase Thursday. 

"I am not here to object at all. Every tax payer, every citizen has to pay their fair share to maintain what we have to do. My problem and concern is we do have stormwater issues on our property," Bray said. 

According to Bray, when she has a hard rain water cannot get under Anthony Street and remains in her yard and vacant lot for a day or so, and she asked what would happen in the future to fix her issues.

Dunbar said the issue is just one of many around Greencastle when it comes to stormwater infrastructure. 

"This is the reason why we are having to have a stormwater utility to fix some of the problems we have. You would be surprised how many stormwater issues we have in the city of Greencastle, and that is why we are having to start this. Our system is also failing," Dunbar said. 

Dunbar said when the city did repairs and work on Shadowlawn and put in new sewer lines, they discovered the stormwater drain was "almost non-existent."

"It's amazing the road didn't cave in. It was a $20 thousand fix nobody budgeted for. The stormwater infrastructure is failing all over Greencastle. We are one of the few communities in Indiana that doesn't have it and we are getting caught up. We have some big stormwater projects that need to get done and we will get to. We are going to start on some of the little ones and start working. If we have good stormwater our roads will last longer," Dunbar said.

The city council heard from another resident who asked what the plan was for the project and her street, which didn't have sewers or sidewalks. 

Dunbar replied the talk of stormwater utilities is something that has been looked at for at least 25 years and that an assessment of the greatest needs will be done.

"There are a lot of small areas throughout town we can do day one. This will be a big undertaking, but the work will be done street by street. We have major issues all over town, and as we work on this, I think we will find more areas. We have areas all over the city that need addressed. We have issues on the southside of Greencastle, and areas on the north side and everywhere. It is a starting point," said Dunbar, who added there are areas around the National Guard Armory, Albin Pond Road and Fillmore Road that officials know are worse than others. 

Another resident asked how much was anticipated to be raised as a result of the stormwater utility and if rates will increase yearly. 

"We anticipate about $750,000 raised a year with this. We have five years planned out and no increases planned during that five year period. We will have to provide education in the schools, as well as engineering on this. This is all stormwater. This is not salaries for the mayor, clerk treasurer or city council. All the funds will go to stormwater," said Dunbar.