Pandemic freeze over: Fee and charge hikes to resume July 1

Asheville Citizen Times

Red foxes at the WNC Nature Center. Starting July 1, the cost of admission will rise at the center.

Asheville City Council postponed some late fees and charge hikes last year due to the pandemic, but come July 1 residents and business owners can expect to see increases on some city bills and elsewhere.

The costs to park in city lots will rise sooner, on June 1, which is when the garages' old gates are expected to be replaced. Instead of $1.25 per hour, it will now cost $2 an hour to park in a city garage, with the daily maximum set at $20.

Residents can pay $80 to $100 for a monthly pass to park in garages during the day, and between $65 and $90 monthly to park overnight or on the weekend.

The first hour of parking will still be free, but coins will not longer be accepted.

The city expects these parking cost increases to contribute nearly half a million dollars in revenue.

The Biltmore Avenue Parking Garage where, starting June 1, the hourly cost of parking will rise from $1.25 per hour to $2.00 an hour.

The city also plans to increase patrols of on-street metered parking to prevent drivers from staying past the maximum two hour limit.

Perhaps the most controversial fee increase will be on water.

In 2016, the North Carolina Supreme Court found certain fees different municipalities statewide were charging developers to be unconstitutional. The fees are known by many different names. In Asheville, it was called both a capital fee and a development fee.

News: Asheville water lawsuit: Customers to pay for $7.5M losses from settlement; charities get windfall

The ways the fees generally worked was that, on top of the bill for actual water usage, a city would also charge for future use.

In Garner, one of the towns that was sued over the fees, the city explained that the funds it collected would be used for an unspecified “future expansion of its water and sewer treatment facilities or the construction of such new facilities.”

Some attorneys have speculated that the fees were being used to pay for other city services that the municipalities didn’t have enough money to cover.

In 2018, a class-action lawsuit was brought against Asheville for its capital fee, a cost it charged water customers based on the size of their meter. The city has never said the charges were illegal, but they did agree to eliminate the fee and pay nearly $2 million in a settlement.

The capital fee brought in nearly $7.5 million in revenue each year, accounting for nearly 20% of the total amount of money the city brought in with charges and fees.

Most of the city's drinking water comes from the dam and reservoir on the North Fork of the Swannanoa River.

Fees and charges normally bring in nearly 35% of the Asheville’s total revenue and, according to a city press release, the city counts on them to diminish their reliance on tax revenue.

The fee increase on water will be modest, according to city spokesperson Polly McDaniel.

“The average residential customer will pay about $3 a month more than what they are paying now, or $6 per every two-month pay period,” she wrote in a press release.

Residents shouldn’t expect to see the cost of water increase until September, though it will go into effect July 1.

Business owners and others who advertise on city buses can expect to pay higher costs, and owners of all properties except single-family homes will incur higher fire safety inspection fees.

Admissions prices at WNC nature center will increase by $2 for city residents, and $3 for non-residents, which is expected to bring in more than $100,000.

A list of all changes can be found here.

Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven is the cops and courts reporter at the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at cdonnellyderoven@citizentimes.com or follow her on twitter @plz_CLARify.