TWSA denies grandfathered rates for property developer

By Rose Hooper

The reason for the decision, which was put into words by the board's attorney, Raymond Large, was, "If we do it for this one person, we are opening it up to everyone else who meets the same criteria."

In this case, the criteria was a letter from TWSA to the Department of Health and Natural Resources explaining the proposed sewer flow for rental projects on Long Branch Road. Such information is required when securing a county building permit.

Elisabeth St. John, manager of Wade Properties, purchased 4 acres there in March with initial plans to build rental units next year. She maintained TWSA's letter, plus her contact with the agency's executive director, Jerry King, prior to the July 1 rate change, should make her eligible to receive the old rates.

According to St. John, TWSA's new rates increased her impact fees "a whopping 323 percent" and subsequently increased her building costs 4.5 percent.

"In our original plans we agreed that if the impact fees were not paid by July 1, we would not grandfather anybody in. I think we should stick with those original plans," board member Bobby Beck said in the form of a motion, which was approved 4-3 Tuesday (Aug. 20).

St. John had not paid the impact fees or secured a building permit by the July 1 deadline, said King.

A 10-day notice is not enough time to raise an additional $35,000, her husband, Wade St. John, told the TWSA board during its Tuesday meeting.

Board members agreed that more notice should have been given about the rate increase before it was implemented. They further agreed to provide more notice in future situations.

"I know that the impact fees like Ms. St. John is concerned about were a different structure than our water and sewer rates. But I thought we approved an across-the-board 10 percent increase for water and sewer," board member Chuck Wooten said.

"Looking over the figures, the basic rates for water and sewer are 10 percent, but for metered and unmetered sewer service, the rates ranged from 15 to 71 percent increase," said Wooten, who then asked, "How did that happen?"

Several board members said they did not realize the rates fluctuated from 10 percent. Other board members, like Keith Ward, said that since the new rate structure went into effect, customers had pointed out to them that their particular rate increase exceeded 10 percent.

"Take Western (Carolina University), for instance," said Wooten, WCU's representative to the board. "Our rate increase was 30 percent, amounting to an additional $100,000 for us this year. We didn't allocate for that in our budget. While we want to pay our fair share, we don't want to pay a disproportionate share."

On a motion by Wooten, the board agreed to hold a workshop Tuesday, Aug 27, at 5:30 p.m. to reconsider the rate structure. Large reminded members that before any rate changes could be made, a public hearing would be required.

Back to Archive: 08/22/02.