North Aurora committee reviews higher water connection fees, proposes 15,000-gallon study threshold

Staff presented a proposal to revise North Aurora's water connection fee schedule and the threshold for large-user impact studies at the village committee meeting on Feb. 17, 2025. Staff said fees have not been updated in more than 10 years and recommended moving from a meter-size basis to a population-equivalent (PE) calculation and raising the study trigger from 5,000 to 15,000 gallons per day.

The plan is intended to capture the up-front infrastructure costs created by high-water users, not routine system maintenance covered by monthly water rates. "Our fees haven't been updated for more than 10 years," Staff member Steve said, describing a year-and-a-half master study by engineering firm EEI that reviewed wells, treatment plants, towers and the village's aquifer. He added, "The cost of the study was almost $300,000." Staff also noted the village recently bid a new storage tower and used those bid amounts in the formula.

The PE approach converts anticipated daily water use into an equivalent number of people (EEI used 100 gallons per person per day). Staff described the model: take a business's estimated daily gallons, divide by 100 to get PE, then multiply by a per-PE cost derived from system capital needs. The formula staff showed used an industry-derived per-PE value of $2,230, but staff said North Aurora's own usage data produced a lower per-PE figure of about $1,300 (rounded from 1,271) to reflect local seasonal patterns.

Using the village-adjusted PE value, staff said a new single-family connection would rise from the current $35.88 to about $45.50. Staff illustrated the effect on multifamily: a recent 20-unit building that paid about $11,000 at permit time would, by staff's calculations, have incurred roughly $57,200 under the proposed local-PE schedule (staff also noted an industry-standard calculation would have produced a still larger figure near $98,000). For large commercial users staff showed wide disparities: for one 4-inch account the average user was 17,000 gallons per day while a single outlier used about 228,000 gallons per day.

Staff proposed these principal changes for discussion: (1) adopt PE-based connection fees rather than strictly meter-size fees, (2) raise the automatic large-user study threshold from 5,000 to 15,000 gallons per day while requiring studies for 6- and 8-inch service connections, (3) apply a 25% connection-fee discount to business categories the village has identified as preferred economic development targets, and (4) require developers or new users to provide engineering data for staff review. "If you're gonna use that much water, you're different than the average water user, and that means that you should pay a fair share more," Steve said.

Trustees asked about appeals and enforcement. Trustee Curtis asked whether anticipated usage would be provided by the applicant; staff replied the village prefers to base most assessments on known averages by meter size rather than solely on an applicant's engineer-supplied projection. Staff acknowledged the village would need a mechanism to revisit accounts that later exceed initial estimates and proposed language allowing staff to require an impact study if usage trends exceed the 15,000-gallon threshold after connection. "If your trend starts to hand out after a few months, we're like, okay," Staff member Steve said, describing the plan to monitor actual usage and act on sustained increases beyond the threshold.

Trustee Christiansen noted regional water pressures and rising rates in nearby municipalities as background for the proposal, saying in public comment, "Water is an issue. We gotta make sure that we have proper water that you can drink and equipment that serves the people, and I think that's reasonable to ask people for extra hookup fees if they're gonna be using more water." Staff also emphasized that site-specific studies are important because the cost impact of a large user depends on its location on the system; a high-use customer in a low-pressure area could trigger the need for new storage or pumping capacity costing millions.

No ordinance or fee schedule was adopted at the meeting. Staff said the next step would be to return an ordinance for board consideration that would (if adopted later) update the village code to implement the PE method, set the 15,000-gallon study trigger, and include the proposed discounts for targeted business types. The committee adjourned by motion and unanimous voice vote at the end of the meeting.

Details discussed but not acted on included the specific per-PE formula inputs (well, treatment and tower costs), sample account calculations, and a proposed path for negotiated incentives outside the ordinance for exceptionally desirable developers.

The village committee will consider a formal ordinance and fee schedule in a future meeting; staff was directed to prepare the ordinance language and supporting calculations for board review.