Council rejects stormwater utility

posted on 12/15/2023

The City Council voted down a proposed ordinance that would have established a stormwater and flood resilience utility at its Dec. 13 regular meeting. Councilors Dennis Shanahan, Lindsey Williams and Deborah Thibodeaux voted in favor of the proposed Municipal Stormwater Utility ordinance, which did not pass on a 3-6 vote.

The Dec. 13 City Council meeting can be viewed here and on Channel 22.

The vote on the ordinance stems from the passing of a Feb. 23, 2022 City Council resolution stating the Council’s intent to form a stormwater utility by ordinance; it passed on a 6-3 vote, with Councilors Michelle Muffett-Lipinski, Robert Warach and Fergus Cullen voting against. The same resolution also accepted its Ad-Hoc Committee to Study Stormwater and Flood Resilience Funding unanimous recommendation of funding stormwater infrastructure and maintenance through a stormwater utility.

The City Council established the ad hoc committee at its Aug. 12, 2020 meeting, charging it “to investigate, study, and identify and make recommendations to the City Council concerning various funding opportunities that may exist with respect to existing needs and future stormwater and flood resilience management planning.” The committee held 14 monthly public meetings as it studied the issue. Its establishment followed an Aug. 5, 2020 City Council workshop with staff from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, during which the organizations outlined the need for Seacoast communities to explore funding for the present and future management of stormwater and planning/responses to coastal flooding.

Following the City Council’s intent to create the utility, the Council’s Ordinance Committee worked with city staff, consultants and the Dover Utilities Commission to draft the ordinance; regular updates were provided at public meetings. In addition, city staff and consultants held public workshops that included presentations, discussions, and the opportunity to submit questions about how the utility would affect them and receive written responses from the city. 

The public process lasted more than three years and included more than 20 public meetings, including six in the last seven months. Documents related to the creation of the stormwater utility are posted on the city’s Stormwater Management webpage, which also includes video recordings of meetings and workshops, presentation slides, responses to submitted questions, and the report on the findings and recommendations of the ad hoc committee. Find the webpage at https://www.dover.nh.gov/government/city-operations/community-services/stormwater-management/.