Recap: City to Revisit Sewer Policy

Mauldin’s City Council will vote later this month to change the city’s sewer policy. According to City Administrator Trey Eubanks, the ordinance effecting sewers was adopted in the mid-1970s and is in need of updating 

The change would only affect properties that are annexed by the city.

If an annexed property is being served by a septic tank, the city council must determine if it will require the property to tie on to the city’s sewer lines. At present, the language in the ordinance is unclear if it is required to or not.

The city must decide if it will require annexed properties to connect to a sewer system, either from the city, ReWa or Metro, all of which serve the city to some degree.

One of the issues the council will have to decide is what constitutes a sewer line being accessible or inaccessible.

For example, a circumstance could arise where an annexed property owner would need an easement to tie on to a sewer line. That would affect a neighboring property. It is then possible for the neighboring property to refuse the annexed property to go across his/her property for easement purposes. The city council would then have to decide if this was an example of a sewer being inaccessible. Under the change, the city council alone would then have the ability to make the determination on whether the sewer line is accessible. This would be done on a case by case basis.

The language in the ordinance bringing about the change was passed on first reading at the March City Council meeting and will get a second reading later this month.

Tapping in to the sewer line became an issue when the city annexed the property housing Dollar General on east Butler Road.

The city must also decide if they will begin charging a sewer maintenance fee to newly annexed properties that need to tap in the city’s sewer.

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