The Commissioners of St. Mary’s County and the board of MetCom, along with staff, gathered May 10 at the MetCom office in California.
California, MD — “You’re going to piss off somebody no matter what you do.” That’s how a consultant described a controversial issue that was the one of the topics of a May 10 joint meeting between the Commissioners of St Mary’s County and the Metropolitan Commission (MetCom). The issue of requiring connections to central water and sewer systems has been brought up before only to digress into arguments that have led to stalemates. Consultant Edward Donohue III might as well have been talking about making scrapple.
The issue may seem dry until a homeowner with a perfectly good well and septic system is forced to pay thousands to abandon those systems and hook up to a central system. Consider a new 75-lot subdivision that is constructing a central system and the line from the nearest MetCom service passes 20 homes that are on wells and septics. What to do?
Donohue, president of Municipal and Financial Services Group (MFSG) said that someone has to pay for the sizing of the lines that eventually will require hookups, like those 20 homes even if the policy doesn’t require it immediately. That would be either the homebuyers in the new subdivision if the developer is required to pay for the larger line or the ratepayers of MetCom if that agency pays for it. “You have to be like Solomon and make that upfront decision,” he said.
Donohue observed, however, that the developer doesn’t always pass the cost on to the homebuyer if the market doesn’t allow the extra cost to be tacked on.
Donohue’s recommendation is controversial. “MFSG recommends that MetCom’s board require property owners within a reasonable distance [to be determined by MetCom with public input] of existing or planned service lines to connect to the water and/or sewer system within two years of the service being available. This is consistent with the policy used by other Maryland municipal utilities.’
Commissioner Mike Hewitt (R – 2nd District] was quick to hop onto notion of the unfairness of requiring the hookups when the homeowner didn’t need or want them. He said it was particularly unfair when they were being required to hook up because of unwanted development in their neighborhood.
Donohue said that even if the homeowners don’t want the forced hook up, they benefit from the increased value of their homes by having public water and sewer. He said that’s a selling point when a property goes up for sale. But MetCom member Charles Pessagno said many property owners have no intention of selling.
Donohue offered an option for the county to mitigate the cost to the homeowner. He said Queen Anne’s County allows homeowners required to hook up to pay over 20 years on their tax bill at whatever interest rate the county borrowed the money to pay for the system.
Commissioner John O’Connor [R – 3rd District] said, “The developer should bear the cost.” But Donohue went back to his axiom: “someone has to pay.” He said one Virginia county allows the developer to recoup the cost when a property is sold or connected to the system.
Being an optimist, MetCom Executive Director Scott Bundy said, “If there’s a little Catch 22 I think we can come up with a solution.” He said it causes his agency problems not knowing who is going to pay for capital costs.
O’Connor suggested and everyone seemed to agree that the two boards create a committee to huddle and come up with solutions to present to the legislators before the next session in Annapolis. It’ll take the wisdom of the aforementioned Solomon to come up with that decision based on the discussion at the meeting.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com