OWASA invites comment on proposed reductions in system development fees

In our continuing effort to provide affordable and high-value services to our current and future customers and in response to a new law passed by the North Carolina General Assembly, OWASA has recalculated its system development fees.

OWASA charges new development, such as new residences and businesses, system development fees. These fees recover the cost of the capacity needed to provide water and sewer services to these new properties. One way to think about it: existing customers have paid to build a water and sewer system that has enough capacity to serve new customers. The system development fee is a way for new customer connections to buy the share of system capacity they need.

A comparison of existing fees and the proposed fees is shown in the table below.

OWASA is a non-profit agency and reinvests all money collected into providing the Carrboro-Chapel Hill community with safe, high-quality, and reliable water, sewer, and reclaimed water service. All OWASA fees and charges are based on the costs of providing services.

You can learn more about the proposed fee changes and the methodology used to calculate the new fees in the Water and Sewer System Development Fee Study posted on our website at https://www.owasa.org/rate-documents.

OWASA’s Board of Directors is scheduled to hold a public hearing on May 24, 2018 in Chapel Hill Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard at 7:00PM. We invite the public to attend and comment on the proposed changes at the hearing or by email at info@owasa.org.

For more information, contact OWASA’s Director of Finance and Customer Service, Stephen Winters at 919-537-4230 or swinters@owasa.org.