FLOOD01805

• County: Statewide
• Community: State of Colorado
• Title: A Utility Approach to Comprehensive Storm Water Management
• Date: 7/28/1983
• Prepared For: Roger E. Krempel
• Prepared By: Marc Engomen
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Project

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private organizations or individuals, and these
methods offer greater fl exibil ity. II He went on
to say. "A new trend. especially in the western
U.S., is to establish s1ngle purpose utl1ities
for managing and financing stonnwater systems. II

All of us are familiar with certain organi-
zations or branches of government which operate
as "utilities". Such utilities provide a service
to the public such as water or sewer, telephone.
electricity or trash removal. and finance their
operations by regularly billing their customers
for these services. The Fort Coll1ns Stormwater
Utility is a special purpose organization within
the city government given the responsibility to
. provide for publ ic needs in the area of starm-
water management.. 1n the same way the City. s
water, sewer and electric utilities are self-
support; ng. the Stonnwater Uti 1 i ty Charges fees
for the operation and maintenance of the facili-
ties in its- system and for the construction of
capital improvements to the system.

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Fort Collins Stormwater Utility was estab-
lished 1n 1980 by consolidating the City's
drainage-related actiYitie~. into a si!lgle pro-
gram. These activities include both the routine
operations, maintenance and administration
associated with the existing storm drainage
system and the development and implementation of
a compreh~nsive capital improvements program.

A - monthly- utl1ity fee became effective
January 1, 1981. This fee, paid by all developed
property in the City along with other monthly
utility charges, finances the operations, mainte-
nance and administration portion of the overall
drainage program. Annual revenues from these
fees totaled S360,OOO in 1981.

....".

The 0 & M fee for each particul ar property
;s based on two factors which reflect the rela-
tive amount of stormwater which runs off the
property. These two factors are: first, the
total area of the property; and second, the land
use characteristics of the property. such as
singl e-family resi denti al, mul ti-fami ly, commer-
cial and so forth. Properties are assigned to
one of five basic categories of development based
on their particular runoff coefficient. These
categories have rate factors which represent
average runoff coefficients. The monthly utility
fee is simply the product of the area, the rate
factor. and the base rate for the fee) whi ch is
based on the projected budget. For 1982, the fee
for the average single-family residence is $1.14
per month. *

The 0 & M fees have been implemented with
considerable success. This success may be due in
part to the Stonnwater Utility1s strong commit-
ment to developing and maintaining a very accu-
rate data base. An administrative appeals
process has been used extensively to discover and
correct errors in property areas and runoff
coefficients. The fee ordinance also provides a
formal variance procedure for property owners who
cannot be satisfied in the administrative appealS
process.

.See Figure 1 for examples of these calculations_

The Capital Improvements Financing Plan

50 far we have examined only the operations
and maintenance side of Fort Collins' 5tonmwater
Utility. The Utility must also design and con-
struct the major drainage facilities, or capital
improvements, necessary to correct ex.; sting
drainage problems and provide an adequate storm
drainage system in the future.

The City's basin master plans identify over
$40 million in capital improvements which are
needed to provi de effective stormwater manage-
ment. Developing a method of financing this
level of investment was a complex problem.
Priorit1zing and SCheduling the requ1red capital
improvements over the next twenty years, dividing
the responsib11ity for constructing those im-
provements among the different parties who
receive the benefits, and developing sound and
equitable financing methods within the con-
straints imposed on public funding programs: kept
the City staff and Storm Drainage Board busy for
several years. But this intensive effort was
time well spent, for the final result was an
effective capi tal improvements program whi ch is
both fair and affordable to the citizens of Fort
Collins.

Like the 0 & M fees, the capital improve-
ments financing plan rests on a simple principle:
to the same extent that a property contributes to
the storm drainage problem, it should contribute
to the cost of the solution. In other words, the
financing plan proposes that all properties
within a drainage basin should participate in the
cost of constructing the necessary capital im-
provements to the same extent that they contrib-
ute stormwater runoff to the total basin runoff.

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Individual drainage basins are the building
block-? of the capital improvements financing
plan. The capital improvement costs identified
in the individual basin master plans can be
divided into two basic categories: (1) improve-
ments required to correct existing problems; and,
(2) improvements required in conjunction with
continuing development. The cost of the former
is assumed to be the responsibility of the
basin-at-large, or current property owners. The
cost of the 1 atter is assumed to be the jo; nt
responsibility of current and future development.
with the exact apportionment of the cost based on
the relative contribution of the two types of
development to the total) fully-developed stonn-
water runoff.

The appropriate financial contribution of
every piece of property within a basin to these
continuing development capital costs, whether the
property is presently developed or will be
developed at some point in the future, may be
determined using a weighted area formula:

"Fee"
where c
A
8
R

CJI(B)R
runoff coefficient
area
basin fee base rate
detention reduction
factor

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