[Hugh R]

So I get a notice from the city that they want to raise every residents Stormwater pollution prevention fee. They want to more than quadruple them. Mine would go from $130 to over $550 annually. I looked at the calculations and find that my property is classified as Single Family Residence-Rural. Which is probably correct. However for SFR-R they assume 44% of the land is impervious, probably not a bad assumption for most houses that have 1/2 acre or more, when you consider the footprint of the house, patio, driveway, etc. The problem is that I have 17.62 acres and that's over 750,000 square feet of land. At most, my house, pool, patio and driveway are 9,000 square feet, or around 1.2% impervious, not 44%. I want them to re-classify me as vacant land, or some other designation, so I wrote a letter to city hall to protest. I believe my current fee should be closer to $36 annually.

Incidentially a 10 acre golf course is estimated to have 2% impervious land, and would only pay about $100/year. Golf courses have parking lots, club houses, proshops, and other impervious surfaces.

I'll keep you posted. Somehow I think I''ll have to get more large landowners involved.