I’m looking at non-conforming legal park, 26 pads, 13 are filled currently. Zoning is general commercial.
Additionally, there is a house, a small cottage, and a small strip mall on the preoperty. The houses are vacant.
Monthly water/sewer bill breakdown:
2" Water Base 0-15 Ccf $57.50
Wtr Consump 16-40 Ccf $42.75
Wtr Con sump 41 + Ccf $89.68
Multi Family Sewer Base $2,781,09.
Stormwater Base $218,50
Water/sewer/storm Tax $287.06
There are a few other minor charges but the total is $3,593.98 per month.
That sure looks like an outragous amount of money for 13 used pads so I’m pretty sure they are billing for every pad being hooked up (26 pads, +2 houses, + 3 commercial spaces = 31 units). I have not seen an itemized bill yet but am wondering if this is a city specific price gouging technique or perhaps there is something wrong here. It’s an old park, built in the 1960s. It’s definitely not based on gallons used as the bill is the same every month.
Any pointers on digging into this one further and hopefully finding some way to reduce costs?
We have a somewhat similar situation. Generally the water company will listen to you and only bill for the actual number of homes connected to the water/sewer. So start there. I’d also ask the water company what else can be done, and I’d talk to other property owners in the area.
Thanks Jefferson. In your case, does each pad has its own tap? I have some suspician that this has a single general commercial tap with no shutoff per pad but they may still be billing a per pad fee.
The sewer and stormwater drainage base fee is about 3k a month. So counting the houses and strip mall as MH pads, this would be 3k for roughly 31 pads
That’s about 100 a month for water/sewer. Is that reasonable for city service?
$100/month sounds high. We are looking at a property with ‘flat’ City sewer fees that work out to $50/pad/month. But that assumes 100% occupancy, which the property does not have. The current owner just has his eye not on the ball and has never approached the City to get a reduction in the fees. We’ve talked to the City, and they are amenable to reducing the fees given that the property is not currently 100% full.
And no, each pad is not separately metered. The City will just take our word for it if we say the property is only 80% occupied, they’ll reduce the fees by 20%. When it’s 100%, we’ll tell them, and our rates will go back up.
What should be a normal rate for water and sewer cost per lot in relationship to the income per lot? If a utility company takes 10% to 15% per lot income will future ulilitiy increases surpass my lot rent percentage increase and thus dilute my bottom line or affect what another buyer will be comfortable with? One of the first consideration in buying a park is how well it might sell in the future. Is the location a changing ??? neighborhood, employment decreasing, or do you serve other than families, etc. For one of my operation of 136 sites my cost per site for water and sewage is $1.47 per lot per month and 10 years from now will be very similar. When one is using unities that you cannot control the cost and pass it onto tenants at what point will that be unbearable? With the cold winter did you have tenant that had bigger heating bills than your pad rent??? Owners need to think about the push for utility companies from our government to raise their rates so water conservation is practiced. Remember looking at parks is easier than owing them and sometimes when there are to many unknowns or question for a first time buyer move to the next one.