Revisit stormwater exemptions
To the editor:
In 2008, Cape Coral home owners paid the vast majority of more than $12 million collected by the city for the Stormwater Utility. However there were 609 property owners who paid nothing and an additional 785 who received partial exemptions from paying. It is also a fact that the fee I pay, has more than doubled since I moved into my home.
I asked to see a list of those properties which pay nothing and discovered many of them are very large parcels of land located adjacent to city streets and major roads and I wondered why they were exempted from paying anything because the City’s Code of Ordinances has this to say about exemptions:
“The following properties shall be exempt from the stormwater user fees provided the owner(s) of the properties comply with the provisions of State Statute 22-8 and prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the subject parcel falls into one of the following categories:
(1) Undeveloped property no part of which abuts public street(s), paved private street(s) and/or waterway(s); or
(2) Property which has no impact on any city stormwater facilities because it falls into one of the following categories:
a. Property from which any and all runoff drains directly and exclusively into state waters without impacting the city stormwater systems; or
b. Property for which all stormwater is contained on the property and from which no runoff drains off the property.”
It is hard for me to believe that many of the parcels I looked at, meet the conditions stated in our code yet they were granted 100 percent exemptions. In a case that came before the Florida Supreme Court, it said: “The complainants contended that they received no benefit from the drainage district since their property was elevated. This Court held that the land owners were nevertheless benefited. This Court stated:
In the absence of a flagrant abuse of legislative power or of purely arbitrary legislative action, which invades organic property rights, the state may by statute establish drainage district and tax lands therein for local improvement; and none of such lands may escape appropriate taxation for the local improvement solely because they will not receive direct or exactly equal benefits, where no arbitrary and oppressive action is clearly and fully shown. The State Legislature and the Board of County Commissioners of Sarasota County acting in their legislative capacities determined by direct legislative enactments that land owners who contribute to the stormwater problem by increasing the amount of stormwater that is put into the system and by permitting rain water containing pollutants into the system benefit from the system since it controls and treats the stormwater problems which these properties create. These findings of legislative fact establishing benefit to such property owners based on their contribution to the need for the system should not be set aside by the Courts absent a finding of arbitrary action or plain abuse.”
Please note there is no talk about 100 percent exemption in the Supreme Court decision. In fact, the Supreme Court said all property owners receive some benefit from actions taken by the Stormwater utility. It is a fact that land values increase when flooding conditions are eliminated by the Stormwater Utility.
It is time to rewrite the Ordinance to eliminate any 100 percent exemptions and to reduce the amount paid by homeowners. I also believe the maximum discount should not exceed 50 percent.
Sal Grosso
Cape Coral