Queen Creek council sets hearing date on wastewater capacity fee increase

Queen Creek has started the clock on a 60-day notice that it intends to raise wastewater capacity fees.

Wastewater capacity fees are one-time fees charged to new construction and are intended to offset the cost of infrastructure improvements related to growth.

“These fees are paid by the future residents and businesses at the time they pull a building permit. That would mean that they’re not paid by any current residents or businesses. (Current residents and businesses) would have paid those fees when they were still a new resident or business,” said Queen Creek Deputy Town Manager and CFO Scott McCarty at the town council’s most recent meeting.

On Oct. 1, the Queen Creek Town Council voted 5-0 to set a public hearing date on the issue. Council Member Travis Padilla was absent from the meeting and Mayor Julia Wheatley is on leave until late fall.

The hearing will take place at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 3, during the council’s regularly scheduled meeting at which councilors will also vote on whether to increase the fees.

If passed, the wastewater capacity fees will increase from $2,901 to $6,144 for new structures.

Wastewater capacity fees were last updated in 2019. The main reason for the proposed increase is the expansion of the existing wastewater treatment plant.

The Greenfield Wastewater Treatment Plant is located in Gilbert and is a community partnership among Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek.

“The current facility is at capacity and a two million gallon per day expansion is required to meet growth projections over the next 10 years — the planning period used to set the fee,” according to a staff report.

The fees are calculated to pay $73.2 million in growth-related infrastructure over the next 10 years.

McCarty said that a typical equivalent residential unit sends 168-gallons per day in water flow to the treatment plant. Single-family homes make up 70% of all equivalent residential units.

With the number of equivalent residential units expected to grow by 14,600 in 10 years, the total number of daily wastewater gallons sent for treatment will reach 2.5 million.

Expansion of the Greenfield plant, which is scheduled to conclude in March 2031, will support future growth over the next eight years. In order to handle all the growth over the next 10 years, another wastewater treatment facility will need to be built, likely on the east side of town.

“We don’t have 2.5 million gallons of treatment capacity costs in this plan. We have 2 million, which basically is the expansion to the Greenfield plant,” McCarty said. “ When we reset the fee in the next two or three years, we’ll pick up that expansion beyond Greenfield in the next fee update.”

If the council approves the increase following the Dec. 3 public hearing, the new fees will be effective Jan. 5, 2026.

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