Pearland City Council at its Feb. 14 meeting opted to not pursue a stormwater utility fee that would have gone to voters in May’s ballot, which would have been one way for the city to gain funds for needed drainage improvement projects.
“It is not a question of if more needs to be done,” Pearland City Manager Clay Pearson said. “It is how it gets done.”
After residents, business owners, church leaders and school district officials pushed back on the fee, the city opted to look at alternatives, such as a bond package. Council members said the city needs to upgrade the infrastructure in areas identified in the city’s drainage master plan and Hurricane Harvey report.
Pearland last did a bond program in 2019 with projects that totaled $80 million, according to the city of Pearland, and is expected to be mostly completed in 2024, Pearson said.
City Council also formed a committee Feb. 14 to identify and prioritize the city’s most needed drainage projects to include in a bond.
“Drainage isn’t sexy,” Pearland Mayor Kevin Cole said. “It’s not shiny; it’s not something that is necessarily new. ... But when the storm is barring down, we want to make sure that our drainage works.”
Weathering the storm
Before Pearland proposed a bond referendum, a stormwater drainage utility fee was presented and nearly sent to voters by City Council to address 17 planned projects worth about $59 million, according to the city.
Pearland City Council had until Feb. 14 to place the stormwater utility fee on the May 7 ballot to let voters decide on the fee to fund specific drainage projects city staff had identified.
Per month, the fee would have charged homeowners a $5 flat fee and commercial property owners $1.79 on their property taxes for every 1,000 square feet of surfaces that do not absorb water, such as paved spaces, according to the city. It was estimated to generate $5.25 million annually.
City Council agreed in June 2021 to put the fee on the May ballot but faced opposition from the community, some citing lack of information on the fee.
Some of these entities, including Alvin ISD, requested to be exempt from the fee for various reasons, one of which was because none of the projects would be within AISD’s boundaries, AISD Superintendent Carol Nelson said in a letter to council members.
In a February survey done by the Pearland Chamber of Commerce, 79 businesses were polled, and 90% of them were in favor of postponing or not implementing the stormwater fee altogether.
Feb. 14 was the last day for City Council to put the stormwater fee on the May ballot, which council members chose not to do.
“The Pearland Chamber of Commerce appreciates City Council listening to businesses and pausing on the stormwater fee,” Johnson said.
City staff is now looking at the viability of different bond referendum options, including a $90 million, $120 million or $150 million bond. City Council did not pursue a bond initially because the city has other capital needs—specifically the maintenance of existing infrastructure—it also wants to focus on, Pearson said.
City staff presented the stormwater fee as a way for Pearland to dedicate money for all capital improvements, including maintenance of existing infrastructure, Pearson said.
Depending on the bond package that is approved, a homeowner of a $250,000 house in Pearland could see a $12.19-$17.06 annual increase in their overall property taxes. Pearland homeowners would have had to pay $60 per year, regardless of property value, had the fee been adopted and approved, according to the city.
Packing projects
Under the initial stormwater utility fee proposition, the city of Pearland identified a list of 17 proposed projects totaling close to $59 million, according to Feb. 14 agenda documents.
Those projects were primarily identified from the city’s 2019 drainage master plan, which identifies flood risk areas, Pearson said. The city also looked at if projects can be done within a five-year time frame, he added.
Now, city officials are looking to add more projects to the original pegged for the stormwater utility fee to create a bond package. The difference among bond packages is the number of projects the city will focus on until 2028.
The $90 million package includes 23 projects like subdivision upgrades in the Shadycrest neighborhood and roughly $10.17 million in drainage improvements to West Circle Drive and East Circle Drive to ease flooding issues in the subdivision.
The $120 million, 25-project package includes $28 million in work on Hickory Slough Creek between O’Day Road and Roy Road that features widening the existing detention basin.
Lastly, the $150 million package would include multiple partner projects with Brazoria Drainage District No. 4 that would have to be proposed in the future. The district did not comment on any specifics when Community Impact Newspaper reached out for comment, but the bond could be discussed at a future board meeting, Sarah Roeber, administrative assistant for the district, said in an email.
Council Member Woody Owens in the Feb. 14 council meeting mentioned the importance of prioritizing projects.
“We need to take a look at the drainage projects ... that [are] going to be the best benefit for us because we can’t do all of them,” Owens said.
Building a bond
At its Feb. 28 meeting, City Council appointed members to a committee tasked with evaluating, reviewing and prioritizing potential projects for a drainage bond referendum to provide a recommendation to City Council sometime between June 1 and Aug. 3.
Within a similar time frame, city staff will also be conducting preliminary engineering reports on several different projects that could potentially be added in a bond, Pearson said.
The reports will identify any potential issues and provide the city with tighter estimates on construction costs, he said.
How the different projects are presented to Pearland City Council is still to be determined, Pearson said.
“I would foresee that it is some sort of prioritization—pros [and] cons of the different projects and the timing of when they could be done,” he said.
Going forward, the advisory committee and city staff will have the summer to prioritize the city’s needs.
While the committee was given deadlines to present City Council with recommendations in time to potentially call a bond election in November, Pearson alluded to May 2023 being the target goal.
The final day to put the referendum on a November ballot is Aug. 22, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office.
Several council members were also still in favor of keeping a stormwater utility fee as an option, even if the city agrees on a bond, mainly due to the ongoing needs for maintenance and operations on existing aging infrastructure.
“[Maintenance projects are] not as sexy, and you don’t get the credit for it, ... [but] that has to be a huge priority especially as we continue to age as a city,” Council Member Luke Orlando said.
