Why you should never upsize your water tap
Today I went to a riveting meeting of the Denver Water Board of Commissioners to present our case for relief from the exorbitant fees we have to pay because we are upsizing the water tap to our building. The building is so old that it has a 5/8" water tap, a size that isn't even installed any more in new buildings. Our appliances and fixtures require a 1" tap, so we have to replace the water meter, dig up the pipes from the water meter to the building and put in new pipes with larger diameter, and while we're at it we are required to replace the old lead pipes from the water meter out to the water main (which runs in the middle of the street). This requires that we pay for a lot of excavation, a permit to dig in the street, patching to the road, etc. Then, in gratitude for our work, Denver Water and Wastewater Management will charge us an additional $18,000 in "impact fees".
I tried talking to the woman at the service desk of Denver Water, and she told me that there was no way we were going to get relief from those fees, but I was welcome to attend the next public meeting of the Board of Commissioners to state my case. So I went, expecting to sit through two hours of really interesting discussion of pipes. The meeting did not start off promisingly--when I walked in I was handed an agenda that went on for about five pages, and a 25-page packet of color printouts of PowerPoint slides that were going to be presented (which explains where some of our $18,000 contribution is going). The meeting was supposed to start at 9:15 am, but people were milling around chatting about their vacations until well after 9:30. As far as I could tell, they all knew each other, and most were wearing Denver Water ID badges. There were about fifteen chairs arranged in Senate subcommittee style (along a long table, with a microphone and glass of water at each place), and about twenty chairs in the "audience" section. I sat on the end and tried to script my remarks in my head, because the agenda said that "public comments" were going to be right after the minutes from the last meeting. I was hoping someone else would start off the comments so I didn't have to be first, because I was getting nervous.
When the meeting finally was called to order, one of the three vice presidents said that we were going to skip the first page of the agenda and go straight to the debate on water rate increases, and I was worried that I had lost my chance. He asked if any members of the public were present for the debate, and no one answered. Finally I raised my hand and said that I was a member of the public who was here for a different matter. He looked surprised and said that they would start with my issue, then.
I said that I was a small business owner who had just bought a commercial building for which we needed to upsize the water tap, and since the service lines were lead pipes, we were now responsible for replacing those too, which was very expensive. And, I said, I learned that if we waited until the water main needed to be replaced, the city would replace any remaining lead service pipes, so in effect our replacement of these pipes was saving Denver Water money. I got a big laugh for that--I guess people at Denver Water really enjoy water pipe humor. I said that the impact fees were a huge burden for a small business that is already paying the actual cost of the tap and pipe replacement, so I would like to petition for relief from those fees. Everyone seemed really surprised and wasn't sure what to say for a moment. The vice president said that no one had ever raised this issue with them before, and after some other officials had weighed in, they agreed that they might consider putting it on the agenda for a later meeting. They told me the answer was no, we were not going to get relief from the fees, but they appreciated my bringing the matter to their attention. As if no one has ever considered whether the fees are a burden on the people who have to pay them.
Oh well, that was a waste of time. In the rest of our time, Jill and I have been talking with our architects, contractors, and engineers, trying to decide how to work with the building (as we have discovered it to be). Here's Jill looking through the plans to figure out how much space we have in the café, which has always been a big question: the café is small, so we really want to lay out the space efficiently.
I tried talking to the woman at the service desk of Denver Water, and she told me that there was no way we were going to get relief from those fees, but I was welcome to attend the next public meeting of the Board of Commissioners to state my case. So I went, expecting to sit through two hours of really interesting discussion of pipes. The meeting did not start off promisingly--when I walked in I was handed an agenda that went on for about five pages, and a 25-page packet of color printouts of PowerPoint slides that were going to be presented (which explains where some of our $18,000 contribution is going). The meeting was supposed to start at 9:15 am, but people were milling around chatting about their vacations until well after 9:30. As far as I could tell, they all knew each other, and most were wearing Denver Water ID badges. There were about fifteen chairs arranged in Senate subcommittee style (along a long table, with a microphone and glass of water at each place), and about twenty chairs in the "audience" section. I sat on the end and tried to script my remarks in my head, because the agenda said that "public comments" were going to be right after the minutes from the last meeting. I was hoping someone else would start off the comments so I didn't have to be first, because I was getting nervous.
When the meeting finally was called to order, one of the three vice presidents said that we were going to skip the first page of the agenda and go straight to the debate on water rate increases, and I was worried that I had lost my chance. He asked if any members of the public were present for the debate, and no one answered. Finally I raised my hand and said that I was a member of the public who was here for a different matter. He looked surprised and said that they would start with my issue, then.
I said that I was a small business owner who had just bought a commercial building for which we needed to upsize the water tap, and since the service lines were lead pipes, we were now responsible for replacing those too, which was very expensive. And, I said, I learned that if we waited until the water main needed to be replaced, the city would replace any remaining lead service pipes, so in effect our replacement of these pipes was saving Denver Water money. I got a big laugh for that--I guess people at Denver Water really enjoy water pipe humor. I said that the impact fees were a huge burden for a small business that is already paying the actual cost of the tap and pipe replacement, so I would like to petition for relief from those fees. Everyone seemed really surprised and wasn't sure what to say for a moment. The vice president said that no one had ever raised this issue with them before, and after some other officials had weighed in, they agreed that they might consider putting it on the agenda for a later meeting. They told me the answer was no, we were not going to get relief from the fees, but they appreciated my bringing the matter to their attention. As if no one has ever considered whether the fees are a burden on the people who have to pay them.
Oh well, that was a waste of time. In the rest of our time, Jill and I have been talking with our architects, contractors, and engineers, trying to decide how to work with the building (as we have discovered it to be). Here's Jill looking through the plans to figure out how much space we have in the café, which has always been a big question: the café is small, so we really want to lay out the space efficiently.
posted by The Cooking Doctor at
12:25 AM
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