If my landscape is designed to minimize run-off by doing things like directing down spouts into grassy areas, why can my fee be reduced to reflect the reduction in run-off?
Certain landscape designs can provide a significant reduction in stormwater runnoff leaving properties, irrigate existing vegetation and improve the quality of the stormwater runoff. This also helps recharge the groundwater through infiltration. Our current fee structure does not provide a mechanism to reduce fees for individual properties based on site-specific landscape design and practices. The use of impervious surface area along with density factor was determined to be a reasonable approach in the determination of our fee structure. There are approximately 130,000 properties within the City of Colorado Springs, which means individual consideration of each property’s topography, directly-connected impervious area, and related considerations is not feasible without introducing dramatically higher administration costs which would result in increases in the fees to pay for those costs. We will continue to review this and could possibly develop a method in the future to further refine
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