[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Budget question

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Grossman, Nick


Mayor Appelbaum –
The current water and wastewater Plant Investment Fees for multi-family dwellings are based on an analysis of city customer data conducted during the implementation of the water budget rate structure administrative rules in 2008. Generally,
 it was determined that there was rationale for dwelling units with lower numbers of bedrooms to have lower water budgets than single-family dwellings, based on lower typical usage. The Plant Investment Fees correlate with that lower anticipated demand on the
 public utility systems. A five-bedroom unit was determined to most closely correlate with estimated single-family detached indoor usage. There appear to be a number of possible explanations for lower per-unit use in dwellings with smaller bedroom counts, including
 potentially lower occupancy than single-family dwellings and reduced number/type of appliances such as washing machines. A 2010 analysis indicated a reasonable correlation between the estimates used to determine the water budgets/Plant Investment Fees and
 use data for different residential customer types. Customer data developed following implementation of the water budgets will be analyzed as part of the rate study proposed to be initiated in 2015, which could result in potential adjustments to the Plant Investment
 Fee and water budget rate methodology.
 
The city’s Capital Facility Impact Fees are based on the 2009 TischlerBise study. Since the fees vary by unit size, they were based on an analysis of the average number of persons per housing unit by unit type (single-family and all other). An
 analysis was done linking demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau and house size data from the Boulder County Assessor, with the number of bedrooms as the common connection. TischlerBise used this data to derive persons per housing unit multipliers by
 type of bedroom and number of bedrooms, and then calculated average number of persons by unit size by housing type. So, the fees are based on persons per household, based on housing type and unit size.

 
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you.
 
Trish Jimenez
Senior Financial Manager
303-441-3250
jimenezp at bouldercolorado.gov

 



 
From: "Appelbaum, Matt" <Appelbaumm at bouldercolorado.gov>
Date: October 20, 2014 at 5:36:55 PM MDT
To: HOTLINE <HOTLINE at bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Budget question
 
While reading (every word of
) the budget ordinance for Tuesday’s meeting, I ran across a couple of items that puzzled me a bit – although they’ve no doubt been explained
 in the past.  These are not in any way problems that need to be dealt with tomorrow, just issues I’d appreciate understanding a bit better.

P. 283, Water PIF.  The PIF for indoor use for detached residential is $11,926.  For attached residential, it doesn’t reach that level until there are 5 bedrooms in the
 unit.  Do we believe that it takes a 5-bedroom attached unit to, on average, use as much indoor water as a detached house of any size?

P. 286, Wastewater PIF: Same question as above, since the issue is identical.

P. 290 – 292, Capital Facility Impact Fee.  Here it would seem as if attached units pay more than detached ones for some reason.  An attached unit of the (seemingly) maximum
 size of 1501 – 1600 sq. ft. pays $5465.  A detached unit of the same size pays $3978.  Also, the attached unit size chart ends at 1600 sq. ft. – presumably because larger units don’t require additional capital facilities – but the detached units top out at
 3700 sq. ft.  Hard to quite understand why we apparently believe that attached and detached units will have such different occupancy and thus facility impacts.

Thanks --Matt