Taxing The Rain

Baltimore County residents and businesses could pay more in property taxes as part of a stormwater management plan required by the state and federal governments.

County officials could announce the plan this week that would levy additional fees on properties based on the amount of impervious surface on a property including driveways, parking pads, sidewalks, porches and roof surfaces.

The plan is required as part of a law passed by the Maryland General Assembly in 2012 that requires the largest counties in the state to collect stormwater management fees and devise a plan for treating 30 percent of the stormwater run-off from untreated areas over the next five years.

Rural areas would also be affected as the costs of driveways and large barns would also likely be included in the assessment of the new stormwater management fees.

The cost of such a plan in an urbanized county such as Baltimore County could run in the tens of millions of dollars.

Other jurisdictions such as Anne Arundel, Harford and Howard Counties and Baltimore City all have proposals before their respective councils.

Anne Arundel County estimates its plan will collect a total of $26 million in fees. Harford County's plan could collect as much as $10 million while Howard County estimates its fees will total about $7 million in the first year.

In all of those plans, the fees assessed to business and residential property owners will be collected via the annual property tax assessment.

Robert Thomas, a spokesman for Harford County, said residents will likely not see the difference between a stormwater management fee and a property tax increase.

"You can dress it up and call it different things, but at the end of the day a tax is a tax and this is a tax on the environment," Thomas said.

Baltimore County and other jurisdictions are not required to pass on the cost of the plan to taxpayers. In those cases, the county would have to find a way to absorb the cost within its own budget at a time when revenues are expected to remain essentially flat.

The costs also raise a potential political problem for county officials like County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who has repeatedly said since being sworn in that he wishes to avoid increases in county property or income taxes.