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Richmond council leaves public hearing open on sanitary rate increase tied to Midwest Industrial Park sewer upgrade
Summary
After an extended public hearing with residents, business and the economic development corporation, Richmond City Council left a second-reading sanitary ordinance open for more information about proposed user-rate increases to fund sewer upgrades serving the Midwest Industrial Park.
The Richmond City Council left open a public hearing on Ordinance No. 35-2025, a proposed amendment related to sanitary district rates and a planned sewer upgrade that officials said is needed to serve the Midwest Industrial Park and nearby industrial sites.
The matter was on second reading and the public hearing drew more than a dozen speakers, including Valerie Schaefer, president of the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County, residents who said stormwater already damages houses in older neighborhoods, and sanitation staff who described how projects are prioritized.
The ordinance would amend Ordinance No. 54-2022 (not specified in the record) and follows planning for a sanitary sewer project Schaefer and others said is intended to increase wastewater capacity to support industrial development. "The first phase of this sanitary project will nearly triple the existing capacity that we have now," Schaefer said, linking the upgrade to the community's ability to market shovel-ready industrial acreage.
Schaefer said the city and county split the cost to acquire roughly 335 acres south of Guard Jackson Road in 2022, and that about $4,500,000 has been committed to the site so far. She also said the EDC committed $1,000,000 from a consolidated EDC fund toward engineering for the sewer project. "The 250,000 gallons per day that we have now at capacity could easily be taken up by just one user today," she said.
Multiple residents disputed that ratepayers should bear the bulk of the cost. Nick Wilson, a Richmond resident who gave a year-by-year history of past sanitary-rate increases, questioned the cumulative effect on low-income residents and renters and urged that businesses benefiting from the upgrade pay more. "If this is for the industrial park, let the industrial park occupants pay for it," Wilson said.
Several residents from south Richmond described chronic stormwater and drainage problems in sections of South Eleventh, South Twelfth and South Thirteenth streets. Jim Long and others said city storm infrastructure either was never installed or has failed; Elijah Welch of the sanitation department acknowledged some complaints and explained the department uses a ranking matrix to prioritize stormwater projects based on environmental impact, cost per person and duration of the problem.
Councilmembers and staff repeatedly emphasized that the public-hearing comments fall into two distinct issues: (1) votes only on the rate ordinance before council and (2) separate operational/repair requests handled by the sanitary district or public works. Council left the public hearing open and kept Ordinance No. 35 on second reading to allow staff to gather additional information in response to residents’ questions.
No final vote on the rate increase was taken at the meeting. Council requested further detail on the sanitary board’s outstanding bonds, the structure of prior financing and specific project cost allocations before moving forward.
