Council defers stormwater utility billing changes after detailed ERU discussion

City consultant Al Strong (Commonwealth) reviewed options to update Crown Point’s stormwater utility ordinance, which was originally written in 2008 and used a flat $6 residential / $12 commercial structure or an ERU-based approach. Strong described the team’s analysis using GIS parcel acres, a 0.65-acre equivalent residential unit (ERU) and pervious/impervious calculations and said the policy recommendation was a commercial increase to $25 per commercial unit under the proposed structure.

Council members raised equity concerns about charging a flat commercial unit to very large parcels or multi-tenant buildings and pressed staff for the dataset and method used to translate acres into ERUs. Several asked for mechanics to apply credits where properties have retention ponds or other mitigation that reduce runoff; Strong confirmed credits would be possible and that the team used GIS-derived acreage and impervious-area measures.

After extended technical discussion and a request for the underlying analysis to be distributed to council, a motion was made and seconded to defer Ordinance 2025-10-29 to the November meeting so the council can review the ERU calculations, pervious/impervious assumptions and potential crediting rules.

Quote: "We did run that analysis based off equivalent residential units... we looked at each property... recorded the acres off the GIS," Strong said.

Next steps: staff will distribute the ERU dataset and analysis and return with refined language and recommended crediting/segmentation options for large commercial users.