The stormwater management fee informational meeting was not heavily attended last night at City Hall.

Public Works Director Jon Erichson and Assistant City Engineer Steven Lang sat in Council Chambers for four hours waiting for questions from the public about the new fee instituted this year to help with city budget constraints. People representing three parcels of property showed up.

Lang said people are already pretty well informed because of efforts to get the information out to the public.

The city has worked to make sure the citizens know about the changes. They mailed out about 11,000 pamphlets explaining the procedure, personal letters to commercial and industrial businesses and have responded to a number of phone calls.

"It turned out we got quite a few calls in advance and due to that, those people didn't have to show up," Lang said.

The questions from citizens Thursday night were not from homeowners. At the meeting, a church, the fairgrounds and a cemetery came to inquire about their future costs.

Questions from those groups were mainly about what qualifies as a detention/retention pond and what the payment responsibilities are if they already own one. Detention/retention ponds ease the burden on the city stormwater system. Organizations with a retention pond receive a 25 percent credit for their bill.

Monthly residential rates are $2.50 for single family homes, $2.50 per unit for twin homes, $1.25 for manufactured homes and $0.63 per unit for apartments. Other sectors will be charged monthly by the acre. Residential facilities will be $0.63 per acre, institutional buildings are $11.25 per acre and commercial buildings are $15 per acre.

The fee will be officially instituted July 1, but it will show up on some utility bills earlier, depending on when people have their meter read.

Matt Merritt can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at :mailto:matt.merritt@austindailyherald.com