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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: March 23, 2000 <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. .&- '7 <br />SUBJECT: Efland Sewer Fund — Demand Related Revisions to Fee Schedule <br />DEPARTMENT: County Engineer PUBLIC HEARING: (Y /N) No <br />ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />3/20/2000 County Engineer Memo Paul Thames, ext 2303 <br />TELEPHONE NUMBERS: <br />Hillsborough <br />732 -8181 <br />Chapel Hill <br />968 -4501 <br />Durham <br />688 -7331 <br />Mebane <br />336 - 227 -2031 <br />PURPOSE: To receive a report on the relationship between home size, water <br />consumption and sewer demand in the Efland area and to consider revising the fee <br />schedule for sewer connections to reflect this relationship and its implications for service <br />demands. <br />BACKGROUND: At its October 19, 1999 meeting the BOCC amended the "Rules and <br />Regulations for Operation of the System" for the Efland sewer system as necessary to <br />adopt the following revised fee structure: <br />1) a stub -out service line fee which recovers the administrative and construction cost of <br />installing the service line on the basis of a "cost plus" fee structure; <br />2) an acreage fee of $1,000 per acre to be designated for retiring the debt plus interest <br />for the General Fund loan that helped finance the cost of constructing the existing <br />system; <br />3) a County availability fee of $600 per sewer tap to fund a capital replacement account <br />for existing infrastructure. <br />4) A straight "pass- through" of Town of Hillsborough availability fees. <br />However, the Board also expressed an interest in evaluating and perhaps ultimately <br />adopting a "sliding scale" fee structure, somewhat similar (in terms of the fee amount <br />reflecting a customer's or category of customer's service demand impact on the system) <br />to that created by the Orange Water and Sewer Authority ( OWASA). The OWASA study <br />showed that the size — square footage - of a house served directly correlated with the <br />water and sewer demand of that house. The results of the Efland study showed a <br />similar, nearly straight line, correlation between house size and water demand. However, <br />the variation in water demand between the smallest and largest houses in Efland did not <br />