MetCom presents scaled-back 2017 capital plan and outlines rate changes, drawing questions on hookup fees and debt

Metropolitan Commission executive director Scott Lundy presented the utility's revised fiscal 2017 capital improvement plan on April 19, telling the St. Mary's County commissioners the agency had scaled back and re‑timed projects to match staff capacity and funding.

The commission's capital plan reduces near‑term work on some projects and stages larger items farther into the future, while proposing rate‑structure changes MetCom says will align charges with usage and help fund upgrades. “We've listened to a lot of comments from the county commissioners and we have scaled back considerably,” Lundy said. “We've tried to align them better with the decade out and in some cases, multiple decades out.”

Why it matters: MetCom supplies drinking water and sewer service to parts of St. Mary's County. Its capital program and rate changes affect developers, homeowners and county budgets because hook‑up fees, system‑improvement charges and monthly service rates flow through residents' bills and influence where and when growth can occur.

Plan highlights and timing: Engineering chief David Alberti reviewed dozens of projects included in the packet. For water, projects listed for FY2017 include replacement of aging systems in Piney Point and Patuxent Park; phases of water main work tied to the FDR Boulevard realignment; two elevated storage tanks under construction (Hollywood and Charlotte Hall); and design money for a Greenbrier ground storage tank intended to serve about 426 equivalent dwelling units. Alberti said several projects are in design or under construction and that land‑acquisition issues hold up others, notably the Hickory Hills tank site where…