Hamilton City Council enacts a stormwater fee on a split vote
As a dissenting voice in the debate, I believe Hamilton's new fee scheme doesn’t properly reflect the concerns of our community’s famers and rural residents.
When the matter of a potential stormwater fee came to City Council for discussion in late 2023, it was billed as a creative initiative to help the City of Hamilton bolster its sewer system and wastewater management plan. The existing infrastructure is in noticeable decline, with repeated environmental calamities over the last several years, including wastewater leaking into Chedoke Creek, Cootes Paradise, and Hamilton Harbour.
A stormwater fee was introduced under the premise that it would ensure large, commercial and industrial properties provided a greater contribution to stormwater management, commensurate with their development of land. For example, a large commercial property which paved over significant space for parking or retail use, has created a vast amount of impermeable surface area, onto which water cannot be absorbed into the ground. The runoff therefore leads to extra pressure on Hamilton’s stormwater system and ultimately generates more incidents of flooding and environmental contamination. However, in my view, the consultants who were tasked with investigating the idea of a stormwater fee, ultimately recommended a fee structure that significantly deviated from this original vision.
Hamilton’s agriculture and rural properties are not contributing to wastewater management issues, quite the opposite in fact. Water is being absorbed by these properties. Further, many rural and agricultural properties are not even connected to the City’s municipal water system. What I found most offensive, was the lack of consultation with our agricultural community and rural property owners in the consultants’ initial work. Part of their argument to tag most of Hamilton’s agricultural and rural properties with an aggressive fee has to do with the clearance and maintenance of rural ditches and culverts. It’s a silly argument to make, given the historic lack of effective ditch and culvert maintenance in these area by the City of Hamilton. A lengthy consultation process, led by Hamilton’s six rural-representing Councillors - myself included – ensued since January 2024.
Over the last six months, we heard from hundreds of constituents, farmers’ associations and advocacy groups, making the argument that on agricultural land, stormwater runoff does not enter the municipal water treatment process. Therefore, farms should be exempt from any stormwater fee. This was the position of Environment Hamilton, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Christian Farmers, and Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture. All of whom supported a full exemption for working farms. I vehemently agreed with this perspective and fought for support of this specific adoption into the stormwater fee plan. Sadly, City Council rejected a complete exemption for farms, opting instead for an 84-97% reduction of the fee instead. A win for farmers none the less, though not the complete exemption I believe they deserve.
On the rural property aspect of the fee, I advocated for a hybrid model of a 50% discount relative to the generic rate of $170 annually. This is similar to Ottawa’s approach to stormwater management and would have been specific to rural properties on septic systems, disconnected from all but minimal stormwater treatment, that do use water piped in from the municipal system. My recommendation would have provided a fairer treatment for rural properties. Sadly, this strategy was also rejected by City Council.
Further, my efforts in asking City Council to take additional time to make a final decision on the fee structure were also rejected. Given the stormwater fee doesn’t come into effect until 2026, it would have been sensible for the City to clarify and better define the policy’s appeal process, along with terms such as ‘green space’ and ‘credits’. I was very disappointed in 10-5 Council vote to accept the stormwater fee without further reductions for farmers and rural residents. The guiding principles for a stormwater fee were clear, it was to be fair, equitable, simple and justifiable. In my view, the final outcome did not reflect the stated principles of how a stormwater fee should be applied. I am remarkably disappointed with City Council’s decision. At present, it is scheduled to be implemented on April 1, 2026 - the irony of enacting this fee as is on 'April Fools Day' shouldn’t be lost on us.
