The Baltimore City Council is expected to give final approval Monday evening to new fees to raise money to upgrade stormwater systems.
City residents will pay between $40 and $120 a year, depending on the size of their lots, under the measure being voted on. Council members capped fees for commercial properties at 20 percent of property taxes, while religious institutions get a discount on the rate for their buildings, but not their parking lots.
Councilman Jim Kraft, Chairman of the Judiciary and Legislative Committee which oversaw the proposal, said a lot of time and effort was spent on the bill. “There were hundreds of comments that went into those first 100 amendments that we whittled down to 27,” said Craft, who added that this was an example of participatory democracy, “We had people from community associations, people from industry; citizens who just wanted to come in and tell us how they felt about it.” Kraft said there will be credits and fee exemptions that will be beneficial to rate payers and the city in controlling storm water runoff.
The General Assembly has required that the state’s 10 largest jurisdictions establish the fees to upgrade aging storm water systems as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts.