The City of Asheville has initiated the Stormwater Utility Program Assessment and Fee Study in partnership with Raftelis Financial Consultants. The Study includes an evaluation of Asheville’s Stormwater program in its current state and future needs, followed by the development of recommendations on how services may be improved for customers. Asheville’s Stormwater program has been funded by a stormwater fee for more than 17 years in order to meet the requirements of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Stormwater Permit. In order to better serve our community, the City is proactively assessing our program and identifying areas where improvement is needed.
“The Asheville Stormwater program has been making improvements to our stormwater system every year and this study provides us the opportunity to further enhance the program to better address flooding and improve water quality,” according to Amy Deyton, Interim Stormwater Division Manager and Assistant Public Works Director. “The Raftelis team has been contracted to carry out this study and lead community engagement, and City staff look forward to working with the community and City leadership.”
Community engagement will be a major element of the process for this study. Generating public awareness and understanding is a critical success factor. Many activities will be conducted to ensure the broadest input from the community, including participation via a project website for updates, a survey to determine stormwater awareness, participation in events around the City such as festivals, farmers markets, business and neighborhood meetings, public meetings, and social media posts. The consulting team is working with the Communication and Public Engagement (CAPE) Department and the Equity and Inclusion (E&I) Department staff to coordinate these community activities.
Please visit our project page and project survey.