St. Cloud Tables New Construction Water Access Charge

(KNSI) — St. Cloud has tabled amending its building codes to include an increase in fees to connect to the city’s water system.

The city proposed increases in the Sewer Access Charge and the Water Access Charge and adding a third fee known as a Trunk Access Charge. The fees would help pay for the estimated $244 million it could take to increase St. Cloud’s water and sewer capacity, which is needed for the city to keep growing.

The Government Affairs Director for the Central Minnesota Builders Association, Steve Gottwalt, spoke with KNSI News and said the ordinance would stop development. “There’s absolutely no question that if what is currently proposed were to go into place right away, it would have a serious chilling effect on development. There are units of housing and commercial development that would not happen in St. Cloud as a result of that.”

He says passing along the cost to builders will continue to increase the cost of housing at a time when adding units should help decrease the cost. “Right now, the government is imposing thousands and thousands of dollars in added costs to the building of a single unit of housing. You can’t say in one breath you want affordable places for people to live and in the next breath say we’re going to add thousands of dollars to the cost of each of those new units. It’s talking out of both sides of your mouth.”

Gottwalt says he’s not opposed to a fee for developers but says there needs to be another option. “We really do need to figure out a way to pay for needed infrastructure, but in a way that does not overburden development, housing and so forth, that we need here in our community.”

The CMBA and other organizations hope to meet with the city soon to craft a proposal that can address the needs of the developers and the city. That proposal will then be brought back to the council for approval.

St. Cloud first proposed increasing the fees in August while assembling the city budget.

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