Will Owners Of Costly Elmhurst Houses Pay More?

ELMHURST, IL – No one at an Elmhurst city meeting on Monday questioned the need to increase taxes to pay down debt for stormwater projects.

The aldermen at the meeting leaned toward some version of a stormwater fee, rather than a property tax hike.

The city says it needs $3.5 million a year through the mid-2030s to meet the demands of the stormwater fund.

To come up with the money, city staff has estimated a flat stormwater fee of $228 for residential properties and $456 for other types such as commercial and industrial.

During the finance committee meeting, Ward 2 Alderman Bob Dunn brought up the issue of fairness.

Elmhurst Alderwoman Noel Talluto (left) and City Manager Jim Grabowski take part in a discussion about tax increases Monday. (David Giuliani/Patch)

With a flat fee, he said, the owner of a $300,000 house would pay the same fee as one with a $1.5 million home. That could be particularly hard on an elderly resident on a fixed income, he said.

"We should consider that scenario. There are a lot of them in my ward," said Dunn, who represents the northwest corner of Elmhurst.

Ward 4's Noel Talluto and Ward 3's Chris Jensen said they had the same feeling.

"A small $300,000 property in my neighborhood compared to a multimillion home on Cottage Hill is that the multimillion home is five times the lot size," Talluto said. "That's a fair concern."

The city is considering whether to create a couple of tiers for residential properties, separating small from large.

It could also follow the model of Downers Grove. That suburb bases its stormwater fee on the percentage of impervious surfaces such as pavement on a property. Such surfaces are seen as causing more flooding.

Talluto said she liked the stormwater fee as a method for paying back the debt.

"The basic notion of a stormwater fee is that it is more closely tied to how much impervious surface a parcel has," she said. "We don't want a resident to be paying the boatload of stormwater costs when a commercial property such as Walmart is creating more of a burden than the house next door."

The committee's members said they wanted more detail on various ways to assess the stormwater fee.

They made no decisions.