Agenda - 04-28-2005- - Laserfiche WebLink

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provide for both hunting and passive recreational uses that can be managed without cost to OWASA and that are consistent with proper (and safe) watershed protection and wildlife conservation practices. After initial agreement in principal between OWASA and WRC staff to prohibit hunting on reservoir property and to allow limited hunting on the mitigation tract (to be managed and enforced by WRC staff), the WRC has indicated it intended to initiate hunting programs on both the reservoir and mitigation properties in the fall of 2005, OWASA continues to appose any hunting on the reservoir property or allowing more than the initially proposed archery and muzzleloader hunting on the mitigation tract and is supported in this position by Orange County. OWASA will be discussing this matter again at its board meeting on April 28, 2005 (see attached agenda material) and potentially detailing a formal response to W RC's recent position, Attachment 1-A-1a - 4/28/05 OWASA Agenda Materials Attachment 1-A-1b - 4/8/Q5 NC Wildlife Resources Commission Letter to OWASA 2) Update on Utility Assessment Policy Until 1999, OWASA had a utility extension reimbursement policy that essentially provided for a reimbursement (over aten-year period) of an applicant's/developer's incremental costs of upsizing water and sewer lines (beyond the basic size required to provide service to a particular development or project) as necessary to provide for additional and orderly development of the utility systems, The source of fimding for these reimbursements was front footage (fronting on the utility line[s]) and acreage assessment fees applied to other utility customers who connected to the utility systems extended and financed by the applicant /developer, This policy did not allow the applicant/developer to recover any casts for minimally sized water or sewer lines. In 1999, OWASA stopped calculating assessment fees based on acreage and front footage and began basing its fees on home size (square footage) or water meter size (non-residential use). The revised fee calculation process was based on OWASA's findings that larger water meters and larger homes represented greater water use and wastewater generation than that of smaller meters and homes and thus represented a correspondingly greater portion of the demand on and capacity of the infrastructure, During approximately the same period, OWASA found that there was a relatively low demand for reimbtrsements under its then current reimbursement policy, As the primary tool for generating reimbursement funds was eliminated with the adoption of the meter and home size based fee policy, OWASA also eliminated its reimbursement policy, Both Orange County and the Town of Chapel Hill, facing potentially significant costs for extending OWASA utility infrastructure to serve government/taxpayerfunded projects, have requested that OWASA consider reinstating a utility extension reimbursement policy. OWASA has generally declined to reinstate the previous reimbursement policy on the basis of numerous difficulties involved in reconciling previous and existing fee policies, but has offered (by way of an attached March 23, 2005 letter) to discuss an alternative policy of funding utility extensions by assessment. An assessment funded extension project would provide a process in which project expenses would be apportioned to project beneficiaries (land and property owners) prior to actual initiation of project construction, Attachment 1-A-2 - 3/23/Q5 Reimbursement Policy Letter from OWASA Executive Director Ed Kerwin