By Jeff Rottman and Will McDaniel
Pointed public comments over a proposed first-ever right-of-way Infrastructure fee were expressed Wednesday morning during a San Angelo City Council meeting.
The council conducted its first reading and public hearing on an ordinance establishing a right-of-way infrastructure fee. Operations Director Patrick Frerich presented details of the plan, along with explanations from consultants from Kimley-Horn and Associates.
Following public comments from about a half-dozen residents, the council voted to move forward with implementing the fee on the first reading.
The motion was made by Mayor Tom Thomson and seconded by District 3 Councilman Harry Thomas. The vote resulted in a 4 to 3 approval, with Patrick Keely (District 4), Karen Hesse Smith (District 5), and Mary Coffey (District 6) voting against it.
Operations Director Patrick Frerich said the estimated $10.5 million raised per year from the new fee will continue the steady decline in maintenance due to inflationary factors that the street maintenance program has been on since 2015 and emphasized the new revenue will not enhance the street maintenance program but will simply maintain it at current levels and lessen the chance of a further decline in maintenance.
City officials say they are still short by about $5.5 mil. and would need $16 mil a year for all the needed maintenance.
About the Fee
The fee is designed to raise $10.5 million for roadway repairs, which operations director Patrick Frierich said has been sorely neglected for years. The fee would, as explained, maintain and minimize an overall decline in roadway funding that the city has been dealing with for years.
The fee will be added to residential water utility service statements sent by the city, and will vary only for fees charged to commercial accounts. For all residential accounts, the fee will be $15 dollars.
The special council meeting on Wednesday addressed only the adoption of the fee and approving the city budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
Commercially, the fee will be assessed on a traffic engineered study of roadway use. Essentially how many trips your business might generate over a large population. Each business would be assessed a designation of how many trips on average it generates, and be charged according to that. They would fall into categories as seen below.
Debate At Council
Councilwoman Mary Coffey asked “Is this fee even legal?”
Her comment was a reference to large municipalities in Texas such as El Paso currently dealing with litigation challenging the fee, and that this could lead to additional legal costs.
Consultants with Kimley-Horn and the city attorney advised that it was within a cities abilities to charge such a fee, and that El Paso’s situation was different.
Coffey’s concerns, as well as Hesse-Smith and Keely’s, were pronounced over the fee’s flat rate, not varying for any utility customer. The consultants said that when graded on a curve, essentially, house size doesn’t dictate road usage; and in fact, larger houses are often responsible for fewer trips according to their studies.
There are more than 30,000 residential customers in San Angelo, which would total around $5.4 million annually in residential ROW fees, with the remainder being raised from commercial customers.
City Manager Says Low Income Relief To Be Examined Next Year
Rather than deliberate over potentially exempting low income residents from the ROW fee, City Manager Phil Urrutia said that the need for relief from the fee would have to be examined next fiscal year after being measured this year.
The council will be able to change this next year if needed, they said.
The next council meeting will be Tuesday September 15 at 8:30 a.m. at the McNease Convention Center. 501 Rio Concho Drive.
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