Park City is preparing for significant growth over the next decade and beyond. Infrastructure will be key, and water will play a significant role.
City staff members are currently seeking approval from the City Council for their water impact fee plans, which cover the cost of expanding water facilities to account for new growth. Last Thursday, Sept. 4, staff walked the Council through plans to update the existing fees “to reflect updated capital infrastructure needs, actual and projected service population, and actual and projected water demand,” according to a staff report.
The City hired Bowen, Collins & Associates, an engineering consulting firm based in Draper, to prepare a Water Impact Fee Facilities Plan. That plan projects “potable peak day demand,” which is currently at 6,835 gallons per minute, to rise to 7,488 gallons per minute in 2020, to 9,470 in 2030 and to 10,288 by 2040.
The current maximum impact fee of $20,765 per gallon per minute of projected demand has been in place since 2007 and hasn’t been adjusted since then, according to the City staff report.
The newly proposed maximum fee is $16,579 per gallon per minute. “The approximate 20 [percent] reduction is directly related to the reduction in future known costs to meet future water demand,” according to City staff.
“The City has expended approximately $96,024,833 to construct culinary water production, storage, treatment and transmission improvements and will need to build another $20,881,469 in the next ten years,” according to an impact fee analysis done by Zions Public Finance.
The new residential-indoor impact fees will also drop. Those fees vary according to the square footage of the units. The fee for a new 3,000 square-foot unit, for example, would go from about $7,060 to $6,200.
The outdoor water impact fee, on the other hand, would rise from $1,335 to $1,598 per 1,000 square feet or irrigated land. That approximately 20 percent increase is “due to the refinement of available outdoor water demand data in Park City,” according to City staff. They wrote that the existing impact fee uses a baseline demand of 2.8 gallons per minute per irrigated acre, but new data shows the actual demand in Park City is 4.2 gallons per minute per irrigated acre.
City Councilor Andy Beerman asked staffers whether there is any fee structure for new developments that are eco-friendlier than most. Staff advised that there is a provision for independent fee assessment, so if someone demonstrates that a new development will use less water than assumed, he or she may be charged a lower fee.
The Council and Mayor Jack Thomas uniformly praised City staff for their work on the new impact fees.
Public input
A public hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25 at City Hall to adopt the new water impact fees plans and newly amended code.