IMPACT FEE DEVELOPMENT CONSIDERATIONS FOR RECLAIMED WATER PROJECTS

Impact fees, also known as development impact fees, have proven to be a popular mechanism for funding capital expansion projects in recent years. Impact fees are collected from new users of water and wastewater systems to fund capital projects necessitated by new development. In essence, they represent the payor's proportionate share of the reasonably anticipated capital cost of expanding water and wastewater infrastructure needed to serve the new development.The capital improvement programs of water and wastewater utilities throughout the state of Florida continue to exhibit an increase in reclaimed water projects. It is appropriate to fund these reclaimed water projects through the impact fee mechanism. However, the traditional method of allocating expansion costs is difficult to apply. Reclaimed water projects have the unique characteristic of providing capacity in both the water and wastewater components of a traditional water utility. Reclaimed water capital projects provide effluent disposal capacity for the wastewater system while at the same time providing potable water capacity (through conservation) for the water system. This paper will discuss methodologies used to apportion the expansion allocation of reclaimed water project capital costs across the separate and distinct water and wastewater components of traditional impact fees. A case study will be presented.