The Crown Point City Council on Monday adopted an amendment to the city's stormwater utility billing ordinance that changes how nonresidential customers are billed and establishes a cap to limit large increases for big properties.

Council members and consultant Al described the change as moving commercial and industrial accounts to billing based on equivalent residential units (ERUs). Al said staff calculated a residential ERU using an average residential lot of about 0.31 acres and then applied that unit to nonresidential parcels to determine billing. "What we did essentially was we looked at all the parcels throughout the city and came up with an average acreage for residential homes, which Chad indicated was 0.31," Al said.

Council members said the intent is to have nonresidential users pay for their share of stormwater system impacts while avoiding sharp increases that could harm businesses. The ordinance sets a maximum monthly nonresidential fee of $250, phased in over two years; council described the phase as $125 the first year for those who would otherwise hit the cap, rising to $250 the second year.

Officials emphasized that single-family residential charges are not changing. "All the single-family homes that's on our water bill, $6, that remains $6," one council member said.

Council made several minor formatting edits to sections of the ordinance during the meeting, confirmed the effective dates discussed in the text, and adopted the ordinance by roll call.