Stormwater utility fee — Sebastian, Florida

Sebastian's stormwater utility fee is $14.00 per Equivalent Residential Unit per month, which equals $168 a year for one ERU.

The current rate is $14.00 per ERU per month (City of Sebastian). The city's public notice for Resolution No. R-24-41 set out the change: the ERU fee would rise from $10.00 per month to $14.00 per month, adding $826,275.00 to the Sebastian Stormwater Utility Fund for total revenues of $2,892,000. The Sebastian City Council heard the resolution on Wednesday, August 28, 2024, in the council chambers at Sebastian City Hall, 1225 Main Street.

The council approved a significant increase in monthly stormwater fees for property owners from $10 to $14 per month, Sebastian Daily reported on September 4, 2024. At $14 a month, one ERU works out to $168 a year on a Sebastian tax bill. The notice states the increase applies throughout the corporate limits of the City of Sebastian, so a lot in the Sebastian Highlands and a riverfront parcel off Indian River Drive pay under the same rate structure.

The city's 2023 Stormwater Master Plan Information page still lists R-24-41 as the fee resolution posted with the plan, and no later rate resolution appears there. Last verified: October 10, 2026, on the City of Sebastian website.

The Sebastian stormwater fee rose in council votes, from a 2012 proposal to reach $5 a month, to $10 in 2018 and $14 in 2024.

The fee has climbed in steps tied to specific council votes. In a July 12, 2012 report, Vero News wrote that Sebastian residents could pay an extra $1 each month in stormwater fees, with City Manager Al Minner describing the $186,000 it would raise as critical. Vice Mayor Don Wright noted at the time that the city had not adjusted the fee in more than 10 years.

The same 2012 article recorded a rule that still shapes every Sebastian rate change: altering the stormwater utility fee takes a super-majority, meaning at least four of the five council members would have to approve it. Sebastian Daily reported that the fee reached $10 a month in 2018.

The push to $14 started with engineering. On December 20, 2023, Sebastian Daily reported that the council unanimously passed a motion with a 5-0 vote to approve the new Stormwater Master Plan prepared by the consulting firm Arcadis U.S. The plan projected annual expenses ranging from $800,000 to $1.3 million over the next ten years and suggested a monthly fee of $14.10. The council held off on any increase that night so residents could weigh in, then adopted the $14 rate in late August 2024.

The Sebastian fee pays for the city Stormwater Utility, which maintains swales, ditches, culverts, baffle boxes and the 8.15 mile Elkcam Canal/Collier Creek Canal.

The money runs the city's Stormwater Utility inside Public Works and Engineering. According to the city Stormwater page, the utility operates and maintains the stormwater collection and treatment system of swales, ditches, culverts, catch basins, baffle boxes and the 8.15 mile Elkcam Canal/Collier Creek Canal. That canal corridor carries runoff from much of central Sebastian toward the St. Sebastian River.

Part of the 2024 increase was for people. Mayor Ed Dodd said the increase will allow the city to add five more employees to its stormwater team, and City Manager Brian Benton said the money was primarily for operations, maintenance and a few additional staff, according to Sebastian Daily. The R-24-41 notice adds equipment replacement and preparation for future capital investment to the list.

Some of the work is water quality. The city's drainage history page reports 9 nutrient separating baffle boxes installed at outfall points across Sebastian to cut nitrogen and phosphorus headed for the Indian River Lagoon, and the city's stormwater FAQ says utility staff clean and maintain all of those baffle boxes quarterly. The Stormwater page also posts aquatic weed treatments in the conveyance system under an Integrated Pest Management Plan, most recently for zones 4 and 5 on October 7.

Larger projects lean on grants. The Stonecrop drainage project re-sloped and armored a municipal canal between Laconia Street and Stonecrop Street and replaced the storm piping under Laconia Street with a precast bridge, designed for a 100-year storm. The project is 75% federally funded through a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant, and 25% is funded by the City of Sebastian. The Riviera and Gardenia project pipes an eroding ditch from Riviera Avenue to Chelsea Avenue in Sebastian Highlands Unit 5, with construction running from November 2025 into May 2026 after a gopher tortoise relocation delay.

Sebastian's drainage is costly because the Sebastian Highlands ditch network was built to 1950s standards, and Arcadis put a full fix at around $193 million.

The answer is in how the Sebastian Highlands were built. The city reports that in the late 1950s General Development Corporation designed and constructed the street and drainage infrastructure for approximately 15,000 single-family home sites, mostly built out by the late 1990s. That network of open ditches and swales was put in to 1950s standards and, in the city's own words, does not provide the storage or water quality treatment required by present day development standards.

Geography adds load. Sebastian lies along nearly 9 miles of the lower eastern and southern banks of the St. Sebastian River and occupies approximately 9,000 acres of the 100,000 acre Sebastian River Watershed, the city says, and most of its runoff flows through canals, ditches and swales to the river and then the Indian River Lagoon. Sebastian Daily reported in 2024 that flat topography and high groundwater levels leave Sebastian particularly susceptible to flooding in heavy rain.

The scale of the backlog is large. Arcadis told the council that fixing the stormwater issue in its entirety would cost around $193 million, which Sebastian Daily described as roughly four times the city budget. The same consultants predicted a 6-inch rise in sea level at Sebastian by 2050 but expected minimal effect from it on the maintenance plan, according to the December 2023 report.

The Sebastian stormwater fee is billed once a year on the Indian River County property tax bill, and only qualifying non-residential properties can earn a credit.

Sebastian does not send a separate stormwater bill. The R-24-41 notice states the fee is collected by the Indian River Tax Collector on the annual tax bill, and that failure to pay causes a tax certificate to be issued against the property, which may result in a loss of title. The Indian River County Tax Collector explains that non-ad valorem assessments are based on factors other than property value, lists drainage among its examples, and states that the real estate tax bill is a combined notice of ad valorem taxes and non-ad valorem assessments. Because the charge is not based on value, a homestead exemption does not lower it.

State law gives Sebastian the authority to charge it. Under Florida Statutes section 403.0893, a county or municipality may create one or more stormwater utilities and adopt stormwater utility fees sufficient to plan, construct, operate and maintain stormwater management systems.

The only discount is a credit for properties that treat their own runoff. The city's fee credit page describes a program for non-residential Stormwater Utility customers that build and maintain stormwater best management practices under Ordinance O-19-02. Applications open in March, must be complete by June 1 to count, and go to the Stormwater Department at the Public Works Facility, 505 Airport Drive West. A city agent inspects the site within 30 working days, a Florida registered professional engineer must certify the system, and a renewal request application must be made every three years with maintenance records.

Sebastian homeowners must mow and clean their own front yard swale and driveway culvert, while the city maintains the shared canals, ditches and baffle boxes.

The fee does not cover the ditch in front of each house. The city states that each homeowner in Sebastian is responsible for mowing and cleaning their own front yard swale and driveway culvert, and the few side yard swales as well. Sebastian Daily reported in 2024 that a single blocked culvert can back water up across an entire street, and that a city ordinance allows a homeowner to be fined for not keeping them clear.

This split dates back two decades. Council member Andrea Coy told Vero News in 2012 that prior to 2005, the onus of maintaining ditches and swales fell to the property owner, not the city, and that drainage improved once the Sebastian stormwater utility took over the larger system. Neighbors who see a swale backing water onto a Sebastian street are directed by the city FAQ to Code Enforcement at (772) 388-4436, and drainage or flooding concerns go to the Citizens Request Line at (772) 581-0111.