University Park council approves phased AOI 2 stormwater design addendum and a 15% stormwater fee hike

The City of University Park City Council approved a contract addendum for continued stormwater design on May 6, 2025, and separately voted to accelerate a 15% increase in the city’s stormwater fee, the council was told.

Katie Baron, the city’s director of engineering, told the council the work covers the Upper Turtle Creek Basin and that the basin’s “overall cost ... is, about $25,000,000.” She described a recommendation to split design and construction into three separate phases plus the underground detention work: “We actually, presented this to Capital Project Review Committee as well from a funding perspective. The overall cost of this basin is, about $25,000,000.” The addendum would create four plan sets instead of the original two and add professional services to prepare separate construction packages for phases 1–3 and for bidding and construction-phase support.

Baron said the fee proposal to expand the contract totals $176,703, including approximately $161,000 for design updates and $12,933 for bidding/construction support. The council voted to approve the design contract addendum and moved the project toward producing shovel-ready packages; staff estimated the remaining design effort might take three to four months to complete.

Tom Tabarczyk, director of finance, summarized a recommendation from the Capital Projects Review Committee and the Finance Advisory Committee to accelerate the fifth step of a previously planned series of stormwater rate increases. Tabarczyk said the accelerated 15% increase would raise the city’s most-common monthly stormwater charge from $14.48 to $16.65, an increase of $2.17 per month, and that the change is projected to bring in about $200,000 over the course of a year.

Tabarczyk also said the city already carries roughly $15 million in stormwater-related debt and acknowledged that fully addressing long-standing drainage issues could run into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars depending on the scope: “If you were to look at everything that we've ever talked about regarding storm water, ... a hundred million dollars in total doesn't seem to be out the ballpark?” Council members asked whether the city would need additional debt; staff said future financing would likely involve borrowing and that stormwater funds have been used as collateral for prior debt. Councilmember remarks included concern about the fiscal impact: one council member said, “I'm not in favor of mortgaging the city, to do the storm water- repairs- or enhancements,” and urged exploring alternative solutions.

Council approved the design contract addendum (item 205-597) and the 15% fee increase (ordinance 25-103) by voice vote; recorded votes were affirmative by the mayor and council members present. The design work approval included direction to proceed with phased construction packages so projects can be advanced when funding becomes available; the fee increase is effective June 1, 2025, per staff recommendation.

Staff emphasized that completed design sets can be held until funding is available and that, generally, plans brought to “shovel ready” status do not need complete redesign unless significant site changes occur. No specific construction start dates were set during the meeting.