On September 6th, the Rochester City Council adopted two new ordinances referred to as Water and Sewer System Development fees.

Water and Sewer System Development fees are charged to all connections from new development. Fees are incurred when the developer applies to connect to the public water and/or sewer system.

According to City Manager Blaine Cox, the existing ratepayers have funded the establishment, operation, and maintenance of the water and sewer systems that are currently in place.

“These systems have excess capacity that allows new development projects to connect to the public systems and receive services,” said Cox. “The fees are assessed for new users as a means to “buy in” on the excess capacity created by the users before them.”

According to Deputy Finance Director Mark Sullivan, water and sewer enterprise funds have “very little opportunity to generate revenue beyond the standard user rates.” Sullivan says the fee is calculated based on the value of existing capacity that the current user base has been supporting.

“Our water and sewer systems are capital-intensive operations requiring consistent operational maintenance and repairs and capital improvements in order to maintain compliance with a number of state and federal regulations,” said Sullivan. “The development fee for any new connection to the water system is $3.17 per gallon of daily water flows. The sewer system connection is $4.33 per gallon of daily discharge flows.”

The daily flow baselines are determined by the type of development connecting to the system, per State of NH Department of Environmental Services Code of Administrative Rules statutory definitions, unit design, and per gallon flow calculations. Click here to learn more.