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UPC reviews neighborhood policy draft adding mandatory-connection language to advisory petitions
Summary
The Utility Policy Committee's neighborhood-policy subgroup drafted language requiring advisory petitions to include whether a township is willing to adopt district-by-district mandatory connection ordinances, plus maps and homeowner cost estimates.
Members of the City of Kalamazoo Utility Policy Committee on Feb. 13 discussed proposed changes to the neighborhood policy and an advisory petition template that would indicate whether townships are willing to adopt district-by-district mandatory connection ordinances.
A committee representative summarized changes the neighborhood-policy subgroup recommended for inclusion in the packet. The draft would require that advisory petition materials include: a map of the proposed project area, an estimate of overall project cost, and an estimate of the homeowner’s cost to make the physical service connection. Committee members said including those details would ensure homeowners are entering a project "eyes wide open." Staff noted the estimate for homeowner-side physical connection work is roughly $6,000 now and may rise to about $6,500, and the neighborhood-policy draft listed about $7,000 as a working figure for homeowner costs when other fees are included.
The draft also conditions adoption on township willingness to adopt a mandatory-connection ordinance on a district-by-district basis; staff said that requirement recognizes that most townships do not have mandatory connection ordinances and that the legal and political work to adopt such ordinances would occur at the township level. The committee was told that only two townships discussed in the meeting currently have mandatory connection ordinances (as stated in the packet), and that other townships would need ordinance work and legal review before a mandatory-connection requirement could apply.
Committee discussion focused on clarifying language about whether the draft requires township-wide or district-by-district adoption, and on identifying where payment-over-time language (36-month payment option) applies and whether that is a city-level program. Staff said the neighborhood-policy group will present the language to the regional commission and, with regional commission support, bring the policy back to the UPC for adoption at the March meeting.
Ending: No formal action was taken during the Feb. 13 meeting; staff will pursue regional-commission feedback and return the revised language for UPC consideration in March.
