Beginning on Jan.
1, 2017, customers of the Chesterton Utility would see their first sanitary
sewer rate hike in four years, under a proposal endorsed by the Utility
Service Board.
At its meeting
Monday night, the Town Council voted unanimously to hold a public hearing on
the proposed hike at its Monday, Dec. 12, meeting.
Under the
recommendation of the Utility’s contracted rate consultant, London Witte
Group, the bimonthly bill of an average residential customer using 10,000
gallons of water would go from $81.26 to $85.85: an increase of $4.58 or
5.64 percent.
Proposed hikes for
other categories of customer:
* Those using
15,000 gallons would see an increase of 0.26 percent.
* Those using
22,500 gallons would see decreases in their rates.
* The Town of
Porter would be assessed an increase of 8.5 percent; the Indian Boundary
Conservancy District, an increase of 8.34 percent; the residents of Fox
Chase Farms in Liberty Township, an increase of 5.9 percent; and those of
the Whispering Sands Mobile Home Park, also in Liberty Township, an increase
of 2.38 percent.
Utility
Superintendent Dave Ryan told the Chesterton Tribune that “the main
driver behind the increase is capital improvements.”
The Utility last
increased its rates on Jan. 1, 2013, when it bumped the average residential
customer’s rate by 5.81 percent: from $76.80 to $81.26. The driver of that
hike: the federally mandated long term control plan to reduce combined
sewage overflows of wastewater into the Little Calumet River during heavy
rain events. That rate increase financed the construction of a 1.2-million
gallon storage tank to hold excess flows during rain events until the
wastewater treatment plant has a chance to catch up.
In the fall of
2014, however, the Service Board elected to stand pat and maintain for the
next biennial period--2015-16--essentially the same schedule of usage rates
and base charges.
Villages of Sand
Creek PUD
In other business
on Monday, members voted unanimously to adopt an amendment to the planned
unit development ordinance governing the Villages of Sand Creek, north of
East Porter Ave.
That amendment will
enable Von Tobel Corporation to build 14 two-unit condominium homes on a
four-acre parcel in the Villages. The project area will be accessed by a
single entrance off Eagles Nest Drive. Von Tobel had originally sought a
second entrance, off East Porter Ave., but planners nixed that proposal for
safety reasons.