Bonita Springs council approves higher utility impact fees, creates RV/mobile-home rate class

Bonita Springs City Council on Tuesday approved a second-reading ordinance permitting Bonita Springs Utilities Incorporated to raise certain water connection and impact fees, add miscellaneous service charges and create a new RV/mobile-home rate class.

Utility staff presented updated tariffs and said the increases are aimed at recovering capital costs and ensuring development pays for new capacity rather than shifting those costs to monthly ratepayers. Andy, a utilities representative, said these charges "are just for those in that instance, for those that are not complying with the current sewer use policy, with the goal of those charges to get them to put in the proper material proper equipment to do pretreatment." The council was told that customers who have installed required pretreatment devices will not face the additional charges.

Council members questioned how the new fees compare with neighboring jurisdictions and whether they would discourage downtown redevelopment. One council member said downtown builders are already investing in projects and expressed concern about adding financial burden; staff replied that the updated impact fees follow local methodology, reflect recent inflation and are intended to fund capital projects required to serve new development.

The ordinance was adopted on a 6–1 roll call, with Deputy Mayor Purdon recorded as the lone dissent. Council members and staff emphasized that residential water-usage rates were not increased as part of this ordinance and that the new charges are targeted at new development capacity and noncompliant connections.

Next steps: the ordinance will take effect as provided in the text adopted at second reading and the utility will implement the new classifications and fees through its tariff process.