City water connection fee could cost hundreds per household for surrounding La Crosse communities

City council to vote on plan next month

New connection fee for water from La Crosse could cost some communities hundreds of dollars per household.

Next month, the city council votes on a plan that would charge to hook up to the city’s water supply, based just on the number of single-family homes.

“Since we’re probably dealing with areas that are predominantly going to be residential, it’s just a much more appropriate calculation for that,” water utility manager Mark Johnson said.

The new water connection fee would be $311 per household. The city recently approved a sewer connection fee of $730 per household.  

“The philosophy behind it is, not so much paying the charges as you go,  it’s more so those areas would be buying into the capacity that others have been paying all along to maintain and provide,” Johnson said.

For a community the size of Holmen, Wis., that would work out to around $800,000. 

Johnson says, currently, there are no communities that have approached the city about hooking up to the water supply.  

The city has recently put in place a sewer connection fee so that those hooking in to the system, and all of its capacity, offset the costs that others have already paid before. 

And that’s not the same as a monthly rate, Johnson said.

“Instead of just connecting on and paying the charges as you go, this actually is buying into that capacity,” he added.