HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 03-23-2000 - 7ORANGE COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT
Meeting Date: March 23, 2000
Action Agenda
Item No. .&- '7
SUBJECT: Efland Sewer Fund — Demand Related Revisions to Fee Schedule
DEPARTMENT: County Engineer PUBLIC HEARING: (Y /N) No
ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT:
3/20/2000 County Engineer Memo Paul Thames, ext 2303
TELEPHONE NUMBERS:
Hillsborough
732 -8181
Chapel Hill
968 -4501
Durham
688 -7331
Mebane
336 - 227 -2031
PURPOSE: To receive a report on the relationship between home size, water
consumption and sewer demand in the Efland area and to consider revising the fee
schedule for sewer connections to reflect this relationship and its implications for service
demands.
BACKGROUND: At its October 19, 1999 meeting the BOCC amended the "Rules and
Regulations for Operation of the System" for the Efland sewer system as necessary to
adopt the following revised fee structure:
1) a stub -out service line fee which recovers the administrative and construction cost of
installing the service line on the basis of a "cost plus" fee structure;
2) an acreage fee of $1,000 per acre to be designated for retiring the debt plus interest
for the General Fund loan that helped finance the cost of constructing the existing
system;
3) a County availability fee of $600 per sewer tap to fund a capital replacement account
for existing infrastructure.
4) A straight "pass- through" of Town of Hillsborough availability fees.
However, the Board also expressed an interest in evaluating and perhaps ultimately
adopting a "sliding scale" fee structure, somewhat similar (in terms of the fee amount
reflecting a customer's or category of customer's service demand impact on the system)
to that created by the Orange Water and Sewer Authority ( OWASA). The OWASA study
showed that the size — square footage - of a house served directly correlated with the
water and sewer demand of that house. The results of the Efland study showed a
similar, nearly straight line, correlation between house size and water demand. However,
the variation in water demand between the smallest and largest houses in Efland did not
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show the dramatic variation identified in the OWASA study. The Efland study detected an
approximate 30 percent differential between the smallest and largest categories
(delineated by ranges of house square footages) of water users where the OWASA study
detected nearly a 500 percent differential.
There are a number of potential reasons why the Efland study did not detect a magnitude
of water use variation similar to that in the OWASA study. The primary reason is that the
range of housing sizes— and some characteristics associated with housing size (lawn
irrigation systems and other types of equipment that are major water consumers) - are
not nearly as great in Efland as in the Chapel Hill /Carrboro area.
The ultimate implication of the Efland water use analysis is that a sewer availability fee
calculated on a sliding scale based solely on a projected relationship between home size
and system demand /impact can provide a thirty percent difference between the bottom
and top of the scale.
FINANCIAL IMPACT: While no specific fees or changes to existing fees is proposed
herein, it is certainly possible that existing fees will be modified to reflect the information
presented above. However, any changes in the fee structure to provide for sliding scale
fees should be essentially revenue neutral when compared to the fee structure adopted in
October 1999.
RECOMMENDATION(S): The Manager recommends that the Board: 1) accept this
report as information; 2) direct staff to develop a revised sliding scale fee proposal (to
replace the existing acreage fee structure) to be taken to a public hearing for the purpose
of receiving public comment, implementing the proposed fee structure and adopting the
attendant changes to the RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING RULES AND REGULATIONS FO
THE OPERATION OF A SEWER COLLECTION TREATMENT SYSTEM TO SERVE THE
EFLAND AREA OF ORANGE COUNTY.
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MEMORANDUM
TO: County Commissioners
John Link, County Manager
FROM: Paul Thames, PE, County Engine
DATE: March 20, 2000
SUBJECT: Preliminary summary of the evaluation of relationship between water use and home size
in the Efland area
The BOCC, at the 19 October 1999 meeting and public hearing on revisions to the "Rules and
Regulations for Operation of the System" for the Efland sewer system, adopted a revised fee structure
for access and taps onto the system. The Board did, however, direct staff to conduct a study of water
use in the Efland area to determine if there was a demonstrable correlation between water use and size
of dwellings. The underlying concept was to ascertain (in a manner similar to a recent OWASA water
and sewer availability fee study) if a sliding scale of availability fees determined by home size could be
justified on the basis of varying degrees of service demand impact on the system.
Accordingly, County Engineering Associate Abdoul Koura -Bodji has spent approximately 300 hours in
the process of collecting, evaluating, manipulating and analyzing water use and property tax record data
on current Orange - Alamance Water System customers. The data collection effort has been targeted at
those customers living in the area that would become a part of a built -out Efland sewer system if that
system were developed in accordance with the 1986 sewer master plan.
The study area includes approximately 532 metered customers of Orange - Alamance (the area also
contains an unknown number of homes served by on -site wells). However, the analysis of water use
relative to home size eventually came to include only 458 customers. Forty-two customers were
eliminated as non - residential users. An additional thirty-two customers were eliminated because the
water use records were problematic (building may have been unoccupied, for example) or because the
customer records could not be matched with the County's property and property tax data (size of
building could not be determined). Of the 458 customers included in this analysis, 348 were in "stick -
built" houses and fixed foundation double -wide mobile homes (both types of dwelling having property
tax data that includes heated square footage). The remaining 110 customers were in single -wide mobile
homes that were assumed to have a maximum size of 700 square feet. The average home size,
excluding the single wide trailers, was found to be 1320 square feet with an average monthly water use
of 4370 gallons. The average water use for the single -wide trailers — with the assumed average size of
700 square feet — was found to be 4150 gallons per month.
Analysis of the data collected for the customer base described above does show a relatively consistent
and direct correlation between the size of a home and the amount of water used if the water use of the
single -wide mobile homes is not included in the analysis. The water demand for the single wide
mobile homes, when compared to the square footage of the units, is such that it skews the analysis.
When home sizes are separated into five ranges — less than 900 square feet, 901 to 1200 square feet,
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1201 to 1500 square feet, 1501 to 1800 square feet, and greater than 1800 square feet, there is a nearly
straight -line increase in average water use. However, unlike the OWASA study which showed a five-
fold difference in water use between its smallest and largest home size ranges, the Efland analysis shows
only an approximate thirty percent increase from the smallest to the largest home size ranges.
There are a number of reasons why the Efland study has produced results that differ so drastically from
those produced by the OSASA study. Among the most telling of these are that: 1) the largest homes in
Efland are smaller and less elaborate than the homes in the OWASA service area and have fewer water -
consuming devices such as lawn irrigation systems; and 2) Efland is still a primarily rural area which
would typically be expected to exhibit more conservative water use practices than those of the urbanized
OWASA service area.
The primary implication of the Efland water use analysis is that a sliding fee scale based solely on a
projected relationship between home size and system demand/impact can provide a thirty percent
difference between the bottom and top of the scale. Based on a $1000 mid -range fee, homes falling in
the lowest range would pay approximately $850 while homes in the largest range will pay
approximately $1150.
Engineering staff are currently in the process of preparing a more formal reporting of this analysis,
outlining the process of data collection and analysis, comparing the Efland report and outcome with the
OWASA study, noting the problems of collecting Efland data and shortcomings in that data, etc. That
report will be submitted to the BOCC later in March. A simple chart summarizing the relationship
between water use and home size is attached to this memorandum. If I may provide additional
information at this time, please advise.
FIGURE 2
6000
Z 5000
0
a
f
N 4000
2
O
V
= 3000
z
z
O
8
Qu 2000
C
a 7oo0
0
0 200 400 600 600 1000 1200 1400 1600 1600 2000
HEATED SQUARE FEET
5