Special assessment the way to pay for North RO plant
To the editor:
I believe the answer today to pay for part of the capital costs of the potable water expansion is by a special assessment. The North R.O. water facility’s cost could be paid in whole or in part by a special assessment. A service area or district must be established that the North water facilities plant was designed to serve. There are,for example, 46 square miles of the city that are North of Pine Island Road.
That is a total area of more than one and one-quarter billion square feet if we assume one-third of that area is not assessable that would leave 854,842,106, square feet for assessment. At 20 cents a square foot a special assessment on that area would total $171 million. At $.235 a square foot it would total about $201 million. At 20 cents a square foot a typical buildable lot of 10,000 square feet would have a special assessment of $2,000. It could be paid on adoption or over 10 to 15 years along with the property tax.
Parcels specially assessed for the water R.O. plant would then be excluded from water impact fees. Any parcels along the boundary of the assessment district that have paid the impact fees would be excluded from the assessment.
Impact fees are not an appropriate method to finance capital water costs. Water treatment plants must be built for future consumption and recovery of impact fees are not timely in receipt of revenue to finance bonds. I believe the administration’s proposal to pay for the water capital costs entirely by water rates is not acceptable. The private operation that was mentioned is not an answer. The rates to recover all capital costs is the only was a private company could obtain its revenue and that today would result in even higher rates.
Arnold E. Kempe
Cape Coral