Windsor city council is moving ahead with the Stormwater Financing Project.
Council unanimously supported the project during Monday's meeting. The 400-page report contained four recommendations including: the segregation of stormwater funding from wastewater funding, money for future stormwater improvements and maintenance, staffing and service adjustments, and a move away from a flat fee for stormwater.
Ward 6 Councillor Jo-Anne Gignac supported the project and says switching to a property-based stormwater fee will be more equitable for everyone.
"We want to move that in partnership with our residents in our neighbourhoods," she says. "I thought the report was really great, so we've initiated those four recommendations and we'll move forward."
Residents will see changes over the next five years, according to Gignac.
"How we're going to bill this based on the individual properties, again, it's not something you can do with in a year or two," she added.
Gignac says controlling the flow of stormwater and giving people the incentive to reduce paved surfaces on their property is going to make a huge difference in the future.
"To do everything we can to control the flow of stormwater from private property into the sewer system or on to other people's properties," she says.
According to the report, the city's current approach doesn't fairly distribute costs between residential and non-residential properties, so "residential properties are effectively subsidizing non-residential properties."
— with files from AM800's Gord Bacon.