Stormwater utility fee — Palm Bay, Florida

The Palm Bay stormwater utility fee is a charge on every parcel in the city that pays for the ditches, pipes, canals and ponds the Palm Bay Public Works Department runs to carry rain away and control flooding.

The City of Palm Bay has charged the fee since 2010, and it can only be spent on stormwater services (Stormwater Fee FAQ). Money from the fee goes into an enterprise fund, similar to a water or sewer utility, dedicated to stormwater management, and the Public Works page describes the stormwater utility as a dedicated service unit that charges by the demand a parcel puts on the system rather than by its taxable value (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility).

Palm Bay also holds a state stormwater permit, the NPDES MS4 permit, and must meet Federal Emergency Management Agency rules so that owners stay eligible for flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program (Stormwater Fee FAQ). Chapter 204 of the Palm Bay Code, as passed in Ordinance 2024-42 on September 19, 2024, adds a local reason: poorly managed runoff may interfere with the water quality and quantity of the Indian River Lagoon and Turkey Creek (Palm Bay Code Chapter 204). Florida law gives the city the power to do this: section 403.0893 lets a municipality create one or more stormwater utilities and adopt fees sufficient to plan, construct, operate and maintain its stormwater systems (Florida Statutes 403.0893).

Resolution 2025-35 sets the Palm Bay stormwater fee at 10.92 dollars a month for each Equivalent Residential Unit (ERU), the same figure in the fiscal year 2025 and 2026 columns.

The Palm Bay City Council enacted Resolution 2025-35 at Meeting 2025-23 on September 24, 2025, and it took effect October 1, 2025 (Resolution 2025-35, page 1). Its Exhibit A lists, under Chapter 204, Stormwater Management Utility, a monthly service fee based on the ERU of 10.92 in both the FY 25 and FY 26 columns (Resolution 2025-35, Exhibit A page A-3). Twelve months at 10.92 dollars comes to 131.04 dollars a year per ERU (arithmetic from the resolution figure). The older Palm Bay stormwater FAQ quoted 131.00 dollars a year per ERU for fiscal year 2023 (Stormwater Fee FAQ), close to the current annual figure.

The Palm Bay City Council adopts these fees each year (City of Palm Bay Rates, Charges and Fees). The ceiling dates from July 6, 2017, when the Council set a maximum rate of 14.76 per ERU by Resolution No. 2017-28 (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility). On October 12, 2026, the Rates, Charges and Fees page was still headed Fiscal Year 2024-2025, and no fiscal year 2026-2027 stormwater resolution had been located. Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the City of Palm Bay Public Works and Rates, Charges and Fees pages.

Palm Bay charges each parcel by its Effective Impervious Area, which is all of its roofs, driveways and paving plus 15% of its pervious ground, measured against one ERU of 4,693 square feet.

The figures come from the Brevard County Property Appraiser, whose parcel data gives the impervious and pervious area of every lot in Palm Bay (Stormwater Fee FAQ). The city sampled single family parcels and found that a typical Palm Bay home lot has 4,693 square feet of effective impervious area, which became the ERU. Single family homes are placed in four tiers by building footprint rather than measured one by one.

The table above is the Palm Bay FAQ's own fiscal year 2023 version (Stormwater Fee FAQ, page 2). At the 10.92 dollar monthly rate in Resolution 2025-35, the same ERU counts work out to about 7.64 dollars a month for a Small home (0.7 times 10.92), 10.92 dollars for a Medium home and 15.29 dollars for a Large home (1.4 times 10.92); the city does not publish those monthly tier totals, so they are shown here as arithmetic.

Condominiums and other parcels are measured directly. For a Palm Bay condominium, the effective impervious area of the parcel is divided by the number of units and then by 4,693 square feet; for a general parcel such as a shopping center or church, the effective impervious area is divided by 4,693, and the resulting net ERU count is multiplied by the rate (Stormwater Fee FAQ, page 2). An undeveloped Palm Bay lot is still charged, because once the ground between the surface and the water table is full, even bare land sends runoff into the city system (Stormwater Fee FAQ, page 2).

Palm Bay bills the stormwater fee through the city's own utility billing, not the Brevard County property tax bill, and it now arrives monthly for nearly every account.

The Palm Bay Utilities Billing and Payments page states that stormwater accounts are not collected through the tax collector and that water and sewer accounts, billed monthly, also carry stormwater and sanitation charges (Palm Bay Billing and Payments). Owners not on city water and sewer receive a combined Republic Services and stormwater bill. Those accounts moved from quarterly to monthly billing in 2026: the last quarterly bill was issued on 04/23/2026 and the first monthly bill on 07/23/2026, under Cycle 10 of the Palm Bay billing schedule.

The older Palm Bay FAQ adds that a vacant parcel, with no utility or trash account, receives a stormwater bill once a year, in January (Stormwater Fee FAQ, page 2). Billing questions go to utilitiesstormwaterbill@palmbayfl.gov, and general stormwater questions to Public Works customer service at (321) 952-3437 (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility).

Palm Bay put the fee on the property tax bill in 2017 to collect more from vacant land, then returned it to city utility billing on October 1, 2020.

The Palm Bay City Council created the stormwater utility on August 17, 2010, and the fee took effect on October 1, 2010; Ordinance 2011-62 amended the rules on December 1, 2011 (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility). Citing aged and failing infrastructure, the city hired outside consultants, Government Services Group, to audit the program. On May 18, 2017 the Council adopted Resolution No. 2017-19, which changed collection to a Stormwater Assessment Fee on the tax bill; the Public Works page estimated that the change would raise the collection rate by 22% because it made owners of vacant Palm Bay lots more accountable.

Starting October 1, 2020, Palm Bay stopped collecting direct-billed stormwater assessments through the tax collector and moved the fee back to its utility billing (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility). The calculation method was set by Resolution 2020-35 and amended by Resolution 2022-58, according to the FAQ (Stormwater Fee FAQ). The governing law today is Chapter 204, whose definitions point to the Palm Bay Public Works Department and the Public Works Director or a designee (Palm Bay Code Chapter 204).

Yes: a Palm Bay parcel with a permitted, working detention or retention system, or one that sends no runoff to the city system, can earn a credit of 30% to 100% of the fee.

The Palm Bay Stormwater Utility Mitigation Credit Policy sets the levels, and each one needs certification by a Florida licensed professional engineer where the policy calls for it (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility). The design storm is the 25-year, 24-hour event, which equates to 9.5 inches of rain in 24 hours, and the 100-year, 24-hour event of 12.3 inches.

The Palm Bay credits are not cumulative (Mitigation Credit Policy, page 3), and the owner must allow the city to inspect the drainage facilities (Mitigation Credit Policy, page 4). Wetland credits date from October 1, 2011, but retroactive credit cannot exceed one year, and every Palm Bay stormwater mitigation credit has to be renewed every five years (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility). Agricultural property that meets section 193.461 of the Florida Statutes and holds the required permits or follows adopted best management practices is exempt from the charge (Mitigation Credit Policy, page 4). Applications are requested from the Palm Bay Public Works Department, 1050 Malabar Rd SW, at (321) 952-3437 (City of Palm Bay Stormwater Utility).

Owners who think the area on a Palm Bay bill is wrong are directed to the source data: impervious surfaces are taken directly from the Brevard County Property Appraiser, so corrections start there, and the charge can change each year as the city loads new parcel data (Stormwater Fee FAQ, page 2).