A closely divided council is being pushed again to reform funding for flood prevention and other stormwater management costs in line with several other Ontario municipalities. Environment Hamilton has launched a “Fair Fees for Stormwater” drive with a petition, door-to-door canvassing and a public education campaign.
The non-profit residents group supports city staff who have tried to convince councillors since 2009 to shift stormwater funding away from water rates and instead adopt an impervious surface fee that will force owners of large parking areas to help cope with the substantial runoff generated by their impervious surfaces.
At present, Hamilton is the only Ontario city where residents pay for stormwater management expenditures on the basis of how much water they consume through their taps and toilets. Other municipalities either cover this with property taxes or utilize a specific stormwater fee calculated on the impervious surface area of each property.
The growing list with the latter approach includes London, Guelph, Ottawa, Kitchener and Mississauga. Some of these offer discounts and rebates to property owners who reduce their runoff volumes by disconnecting downspouts, or installing rain barrels, pervious pavement or other water conservation measures.
The staff proposal for reforms has been debated at least three times by council and rejected repeatedly, but by smaller and smaller margins. The last vote took place in October when a proposal to study possible options and their impacts on property owners was turned down 8-7. The absent vote was Mayor Eisenberger who supports the staff proposals, and one of the votes against was cast by Scott Duvall who has since stepped down to become an MP and been replaced in a by-election by Donna Skelly.
Environment Hamilton sees reform as a way for Hamilton to prepare for the more extreme rainstorms associated with climate change, and points to a 2012 storm that dumped six inches in three hours on parts of upper Stoney Creek and Glanbrook. They also argue the current system is unfair.
“Large impervious areas like commercial parking lots contribute the most to stormwater runoff, without contributing to the costs of dealing with it, while nearby households that face greater flooding risks are left to foot the bill,” says the group. “In building a more resilient city, incentives should be provided for property owners to decrease their contribution to the strain on the system – and property owners that contribute the most should pay the most.”
That problem was described to council last fall by Dan Mackinnon, the city’s director of water and wastewater:
“If you go to downtown Hamilton and you see a parking lot, I don't sell them any water. If it's paved, the contribution to the stormwater system is significant. So all the other folks who are just on a 50 by 100 foot lot getting a water bill every year, they're subsidizing all those other properties from a stormwater perspective.”
Council opponents like Lloyd Ferguson argue impervious surface fees are just “another new tax” or what former councillor Brad Clark dubbed “a rain tax”. The most recent debate last October also focused on the $600,000 cost to map properties to determine appropriate fees.
Environment Hamilton points to staff warnings that Hamilton’s stormwater spending has more than doubled in the last decade in the wake of close to 20 major storms that resulted in flooded homes. That’s on top of over $5 million distributed in compassionate grants to flooding victims and an even larger amount being spent on $2200 per home subsidies to install backwater valves.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says “extreme weather events that used to happen every 40 years now occur every 6 years in some regions of the country.” Insurers paid out a billion dollars or more per year between 2009 and 2014 including $3.2 billion in 2013 when catastrophic flooding hit both Alberta and Toronto.