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In response to raising costs the El Dorado Irrigation District (EID) Board of Directors recently decided approve the adoption of a new "hook-up" fee known as an "FCC", or facility capacity charge. Although the FCC fee has not been adjusted since 2005, the dramatic jump met with stiff resistance from the public. 

At issue are the FCC water, sewer, and recycled water "hook-up" fees that are charged to new customers to cover the cost of increasing existing and building future facilities to serve them. The FCC fees are unrelated to the "usage" rates for existing water & sewer customers, which are billed bi-monthly. 

Under EID policy 11010, existing customers cannot be charged for capacity increases necessitated by new development. The rule is designed to protect existing customers from subsidizing new customers. Additionally, without a two-thirds vote of the people the state law prohibits new customers from being charged more than the cost of the additional infrastructure burdens they create. 

"We're not saying we're not going to pay our fair share," said John Costa, legislative advocate for the North State Building Industry Association. "If those are the costs, those are the costs." 
What Costa and others were asking for was a correction of the “asset base” figures and methodology used by EID to arrive at the new fees being proposed, which in most cases would represent an almost 100% increase over the existing fee.

Most recently, questions about lines used “in-tract” not being a “public benefit” and therefore should not be included in the fee calculations. The Board agreed that that in-tract lines should not be included, but were uncertain which lines these were as a comprehensive analysis was fiscally infeasible. The Board adopted a common practice of excluding lines of 5’ diameter and less. This reduced the fee for new meters by up to $334 from the proposed increase of nearly $15,000. This fee was adopted after 11 public meetings and workshops.

New Single Family Residential Water Meters with 3/4” pipe –Total FCCs

* El Dorado Hills $24,625
* Cameron Park $20,633
* Mother Lode SA, $29,708
* Satellite Areas, $26,202

# EDH & CP fees are for dual plumbed houses that use recycled water for outside irrigation.

EID has also revised the EDU value of meters and this makes a great difference in the cost of non-SFR meters.

Concerns were expressed that the county's traffic impact fees (TIM Fees) and EID Hook-up (FCC) fees, have increased the cost of a new home in some areas by more than $70,000! 
Affordable housing in El Dorado County is not possible when you add these “infrastructure” fees. These fees are in addition to the cost of land and building.