The Cobb County Commission voted to again table the plan to change how stormwater fees are collected in the county after significant pushback from the public, but this time with no set date to reconsider.
The board tabled the proposal in March with a promise to return to it in August. In Tuesday’s meeting, the commissioners failed to set a date to bring up the issue.
The county’s stormwater plan looks to address a backlog of sinkhole and pipe repairs after years of severe flooding and a historic lack of investment in stormwater infrastructure.
The current system calculates a fee according to water usage, which Water System Director Judy Jones said is not an accurate representation of a property’s impact to the stormwater system. The new fee would be calculated based on a property’s amount of impervious surface — concrete and other surfaces that prevent the absorption of water.
Cobb’s fee as proposed would likely fall between $2.17 and $4.00 per month for the average residential water customer with 3,700 square feet of impervious surface. Water and sewer rates would also decrease slightly to account for the shift.
When the board voted to table the proposal in March, Chairwoman Lisa Cupid indicated she wants the board to find and implement solutions to the stormwater issues that prior boards talked about but never properly funded.
“There are some minor details that we are still looking to get some consensus on, if there will be consensus,” Cupid said in Tuesday’s meeting. “There will be a need to fund stormwater. We’re going to have to figure out how.”
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