This is the first time in my 28- year career when nearly every meeting of business owners I attend turns into a discussion of stormwater management. In fact, in June, I was in Virginia talking to a 22 year old Marine on a Saturday afternoon. When I told him that I lived in Maryland, and he replied "Wow, I heard they are even going to tax rain in Maryland!" The person who started calling the new stormwater management fee the 'Rain Tax' unknowingly made a huge stride toward many Maryland citizens learning (or at least wondering) about stormwater management.
The 'Rain Tax' is actually a stormwater management fee requirement imposed by the Maryland state government beginning July 1, 2013 on ten Maryland jurisdictions, Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard, Anne Arundel, Carroll, Harford, Charles, Frederick, and Baltimore Counties and Baltimore City. The County/City government will set the fee, collect the fee, and decide how it is spent toward achie
ving stormwater management requirements broadly defined in the EPA's Clean Water Act and more specifically defined in local government regulations and the Chesapeake Bay clean-up efforts.
The fee doesn't actually tax rainfall itself but instead taxes the runoff that drains from impervious surfaces such as roof tops, driveways, and parking lots as a result of rainfall. Runoff from impervious areas picks up oil, gasoline, herbicides, pesticides and other pollutants prior to reaching state waterways. The fee will fund projects to improve the "quality", i.e. reduce pollutants, in the stormwater in the affected jurisdictions. Some jurisdictions offer a credit if you maintain a stormwater management facility on your property. Most jurisdictions charge a base fee per residential lot and a fee per impervious acre on commercial/industrial lots. One concern is that non-profit organizations such as churches are typically not exempt. The fee for an entity with large building or parking areas will be significant and potentially a hardship.
The fee that will be charged to both businesses and residents varies dramatically between the jurisdictions. In Montgomery County, a modified fee is even charge to Agricultural property owners. In Baltimore City home owners will pay between $48 and $144 per year, but commercial owners (including non-profits) will be taxed at $2,987 per impervious acre. In Anne Arundel County, law makers voted to exempt non-profits from the tax. On the other end of the spectrum, Frederick County voted to charge property owners a 1-cent fee and expects to raise a total of $482.50 per year. The Carroll County Commissioners recently decided to set aside money already available in the county coffers to fund stormwater management programs rather than impose any new fee on residents and businesses. They feared that even a 1-cent fee could be easily increased in future years.
Where fees are charged based on impervious area, typically a GIS (geographic information system) will be used to determine the amount of impervious area on a property. Jurisdictional records will also be used to determine if a property owner may be given a credit for maintaining an on-site stormwater management facility.
If you have questions about the new Maryland stormwater management fee, otherwise known as the rain tax, feel free to contact Kristin Barmoy at Kbarmoy@hanoverlandservices.com. If you are a property owner in one of the Maryland jurisdictions where the 'Rain Tax' will be assessed based on the acreage of impervious area and you want help confirming the amount of taxable area or wonder if you should be getting credit for an on-site stormwater management facility, contact Hanover Land Services, Inc. via the same e-mail.
Owner financing possible.