When you get your annual property tax bill from Wake County later this fall, you will see a new fee, either $44, $121 or $231, for the new Wake Forest utility, Stormwater Management.
To learn about the new stormwater office in town government and the fee, do the following: go to the town website — https://www.wakeforestnc.gov, click on the Engineering Department, click on Stormwater Management, while there click on Stormwater Utility in the box at the left, and scroll down on the stormwater utility page to see the fee schedule.
This is how the new fee is assessed: “The fee is based on the amount of impervious surface on a property, such as roofs, driveways, and parking lots that contribute to the generation of stormwater runoff.
“An ‘impervious surface’ is a hard surface on a property that does not allow rain to soak into the ground such as, but not limited to, rooftops, carports, driveways, garages, walkways, storage sheds, parking lots, and patios.”
Each ERU is 11,200 square feet of impervious surface.
The three tiers represent the impervious surfaces on each property in the town. Very small house with 1,500 square feet of roof, you pay $44. Tier two is where the large majority of the town’s homes and buildings lie, with 1,501 to 4,700 square feet of roof, driveway, patio, deck and outbuildings, paying $121 each. Tier three is for all properties with over 4,700 square feet of impervious surface: a house with a patio and a garage or barn. They pay $231 annually.
Non-residential buildings will pay a fee based on the following calculation: the total site square footage of impervious surface times $44.
There is an appeal process for owners who think they are being incorrectly assessed.
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