By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

WINONA LAKE — Property owners in Winona Lake will now have to pay a fee for stormwater.

At its regular meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 15, the Winona Lake Town Council passed a stormwater fee ordinance.

The vote to approve was 5-0.

Property owners will have to pay a $5 monthly stormwater user fee starting on Jan. 1. The fee will rise to $7 per month in 2022 and $9 per month in 2023.

According to the ordinance, the rates are flat for single-family homes, mobile homes, apartments with no more than three units and home-based businesses in residential areas.

Those owning non-residential property or multi-unit property with more than three units will pay a rate based on the amount of surface area that doesn’t absorb stormwater divided by 3,800 square feet.

Revenues from the fee will be used to make stormwater infrastructure improvements.

Sewer fee adjustment

The council also denied a request from Jeremy Porter for an adjustment to paying the regular rate for a sewer fee.

He’s one of the new owners of the 77 Kings Highway apartment building. He said he believes the owners can qualify for an exemption from the regular fee since the apartments differ from regular ones in that they are quite small, efficiency-style ones.

He said that might qualify for an exemption as the building might be similar to a rooming house, which is one of the exemptions in the ordinance.

Town Attorney Adam Turner weighed in. “I think the question for the council is, is this a substantially enough difference that, is it creating (not being inequitable) … whether this situation warrants that,” he said.

Town Manager Craig Allebach asked Porter if each apartment had its own bathroom, which Porter said they did.

Allebach said that was typical of a normal apartment and not a rooming house. He cautioned the council that they’ve received several requests for deviations from the fee with people saying that they don’t have many people in their residences or live in a small space.

Porter also asked if the apartments could qualify for an exemption based on the amount of usage measured by a water meter since they are in a zoned industrial area.

The council decided to deny Porter’s initial request, but invited him to return to discuss the later point he made after the council could do more research.

Board appointments

The council also approved appointing or reappointing people to the park board, redevelopment commission and art commission.

They are: Meghan Smith and Matt Goebel to the park board; Bruce Shaffner, Dennis Daniels, Al Disbro and Alan Alderfer to the redevelopment commission; and Rick Swaim, Joy Lohse, Disbro, Mary Pat Wallen, Retha Hicks and Terry White to the art commission.

In other business, council:

• Opted to table once again a request for the vacation of an alley behind 301 Boys City Drive as the two sides work on a compromise. The petitioner is Robert Hackbirth.

• Approved its annual agreement with KEDCo.
• Heard from Winona Lake Park Director Holly Hummitch that she and others have crafted 75 responses to letters to Santa sent in.

That activity was created as an alternative to KringleFest, which had to be canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

• Heard that the Polar Dash 4 Miler race will take place at 2 p.m. on Jan. 1 in Winona Lake.
• Reapproved having Turner as attorney for the town and Aaron Carl as the town’s engineer.