Hot Take · Vol. I, No. 14
Ordinance 2026-18, introduced Monday, would create a Radnor Stormwater Authority, a separate municipal body with the legal power to bill every property owner in the Township for the runoff their roofs, driveways, and parking lots send into the public drainage system. The fee structure is not yet set. The vote Monday is on the introduction; second reading and adoption come later. Residents have one comment window now and another at second reading.
Here is the structural fact a Radnor homeowner needs to hold in mind. A stormwater fee is not capped by the Act 1 millage index that constrains property tax. It can be raised by the authority's board without a Board of Commissioners vote. It does not appear on the same line of the same bill as your school district mill rate, your county levy, or your Township tax. For a household that pays attention only when the property-tax envelope arrives in February, the stormwater bill is a separate event on a separate cycle, run by a body whose members are typically appointed rather than directly elected. That is the structural argument for skepticism.
There is a real argument the other way. Villanova University pays no property tax. Neither does the Radnor Township School District on its own buildings. Neither do the churches, the synagogues, the seven nursing facilities, or any other tax-exempt parcel in town. All of them produce stormwater runoff into the South Wayne, North Wayne, and Gulph Creek systems the Township has been trying to remediate for the better part of a decade. Today, the homeowner pays for that work twice: once through her property tax that funds the General Fund line for stormwater capital, and again every time her basement floods after a 1.5-inch storm. A stormwater authority spreads the bill onto every contributor to the problem, not just the property-tax-paying ones, and it ring-fences the revenue for stormwater work alone. That is real reform, not just relabeling.
The case turns on three answerable questions. First, how will the authority calculate the per-parcel fee? The defensible standard is impervious-surface area, typically measured in equivalent residential units (ERUs) so that a 12,000-square-foot industrial roof pays multiples of what a 1,800-square-foot rancher pays. Anything less specific than ERU-based pricing should worry residents. Second, who appoints the authority board, and is there a Sunshine-compliant public-comment requirement at every fee-setting meeting? An appointed board with weak transparency rules is the failure mode for this kind of utility. Third, will the General Fund line that currently funds stormwater work shrink by the amount the authority collects? That is, will the new fee replace existing tax dollars or stack on top of them? If it stacks, this becomes a tax increase wearing a utility uniform.
The right move for residents Monday night is to go on the record asking those three questions in public comment. The introduction is the moment to define the floor; the answers should be in writing before second reading.