The City of Moose Jaw’s storm water utility is now official after city council passed third reading of the bylaw on Monday night.
The utility will see residents charged a flat rate of $9.80 per month per property, regardless of size. It will fund the storm water sewer system’s operations and infrastructure as a standalone funding source, rather than competing for funding with other city projects.
The storm water utility bylaw passed its first two readings on June 23, but council tabled third reading and referred it back to executive committee for further discussion.
Concerns were raised at the June 23 meeting about storm water connection requirements — particularly whether older buildings would be grandfathered — and about exemptions under the bylaw, along with the process for requesting those exemptions.
A revised draft bylaw was presented to council on July 14. It removed Section 8, which dealt with storm water connections, as it was redundant with the Building Bylaw.
Under the bylaw, there will be exemptions for parks, cemeteries and community gardens. The city counted 114 parks and two cemeteries that would be exempt. City administration did not have an exact number of community gardens, but believes the number is small.
The previous version of the bylaw stated that exemption approvals would be at the discretion of the city manager with no appeal process. The final bylaw includes an operational guideline detailing the exemption process.
The utility was originally scheduled to take effect on July 1, but the city says that date has been pushed back due to the delay in passing the bylaw.
City administration estimates the storm water utility will generate $1.6 million annually for the storm water system based on 13,701 properties.