CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Stormwater Fee On Paved Surfaces Debate

Fairhaven residents have long financed the city’s storm sewers unknowingly, the cost buried in their property taxes. Council is weighing a plan to replace that with a separate fee calculated on how much of each property is sealed under roofs, driveways and parking lots, impermeable surfaces that send rain cascading into the pipes. After two summers of flash floods that forced sewage into hundreds of basements, the question is hardly academic.

City engineer Lorraine Vachon regards the existing arrangement as misdirected. “Property tax tracks what a building’s worth, not how much water it discharges. A bungalow on a leafy lot can contribute more than a discount warehouse encircled by four acres of asphalt.” Rain gardens, permeable paving or underground cisterns could reduce an owner’s fee by up to 40 percent. The intention is to reward those who keep water where it falls.

Gary Pelletier, who owns an east-side shopping plaza, acknowledges the runoff problem but bristles at the remedy. His estimated $18,000 annual charge is roughly triple his current contribution, although the lot was built to municipal standards thirty years ago. He might install permeable paving, but only if the municipality shares the expense of tearing up serviceable pavement. “Otherwise, the burden will fall on my tenants, mostly small family businesses,” he warns.

The fee would also reach organizations that have never received a municipal bill. Grace Community Church, a registered charity exempt from property tax, would owe roughly $3,200 a year. Board chair Margaret Osei raises no quarrel with the principle: “Rain doesn’t care whether it runs off a church or a casino.” She asks only for a five-year phase-in, allowing the congregation to budget or seek grants.

Councillor Raj Bhatt of the finance committee concedes that property tax is a clumsy instrument for funding drainage, yet he remains wary. “A fee is a tax by another name, one that can be raised quietly without the scrutiny a tax increase attracts.” His support hinges on the revenue being legally reserved for stormwater projects and property taxes falling by the full amount collected. “Otherwise, residents would pay twice for identical pipes.”

Sewage flooded my basement both summers, so I welcome a council that finally asks who 6. Choose…fills the sewers mosthas the oldest sewerowns the most valuable buildingslives nearest the flooding. Under today’s system my bungalow, with its enormous backyard, pays more than 7. Choose…a plaza of small family shopsa downtown condominium towerthe tallest office towera store ringed by parking, which has never made sense to me. I would gladly dig a rain garden for a smaller bill.

I can sympathize with 8. Choose…the owner of the shopping plazathe city engineerthe church board chairthe finance councillor, because an organization that has never paid the city a cent needs time to plan. I am far less moved by the plaza owner’s threat to 9. Choose…rip up his pavement at his own costpass the charge downask for a phase-ininstall cisterns; thirty-year-old asphalt is no excuse for overloading the sewers. As for the councillor’s fear of a cash grab, the cure is simple: 10. Choose…phase the charge in slowlyexempt small homestie council downreturn to property-tax funding.