The Chamber Board heard a brief presentation at their August meeting regarding a proposal to impose usage fees and impact fees on businesses and residences as part of a strategy by the Grand Valley Drainage District to meet the increased needs of urbanization and regulation regarding management of storm water runoff in the Valley. At that time the board determined that the voice of the general business community was needed as the District considered levying these fees. Diane Schwenke attended the public meeting on the proposal August 24th and voiced concerns of how businesses would be impacted by the new fees.
The proposal at that meeting was to impose a fee of $3/month on businesses for every 2,500 square feet of impermeable surface (as in buildings and parking lots). By way of example the roughly 50,000 square feet that the Chamber owns for its building and parking lot would be assessed $740 annually. In addition to this basic fee businesses already are subject to a mill levy and would be also be assessed an impact fee of $500 for every 2,500 square feet of expansion of new building/parking lot additions and improvements in the future. Schwenke noted the following concerns:
- Businesses already pay more than residences because of the way they are assessed for the mill levy
- Businesses in industrial parks such as Bookcliff Tech Park already pay thousands of dollars for maintenance of a detention pond and water quality filtration system yet would still be assessed this fee at the same rate as others who do not contribute to mitigating run off impacts
- Most fees have an industrial or commercial usage fee that differs from residential fees but this fee would simply require more from businesses based on their size
- Businesses are the economic engine of this and need to have representatives at the table for these discussions
Based on the input of Schwenke and others at the August 24th meeting a decision on passing the resolution to assess the fee was postponed until September 9th. Members are urged to become informed about the issues and the solutions being proposed and voice their opinion to the Grand Valley Drainage Board prior to that meeting.
Click here to download full version of the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce September 2015 Newsletter.