LEWISTON – A storm-water fee might not be the best solution to rising property taxes, but it’s the only one city councilors have right now, they said Tuesday.

“There is no system of taxation that’s fair or perfect,” Councilor Normand Rousseau said. “We are just trying to make it better, but we know we never will make it perfect.”

Councilors voted to charge Lewiston property owners a fee based on the amount of storm runoff created by hard surfaces on their properties. They adopted a fee-rate schedule, created some credits for property owners who try to treat storm runoff themselves and dedicated the fees to pay for runoff-related city costs Tuesday night.

They are scheduled to vote on the plan a second and final time at their Oct. 3 meeting.

The City Council adopted the concept this spring during budget deliberations, cutting $1.6 million from property taxes. The fee would replace that money, paying for maintenance of the city’s system of canals, culverts and storm drains as well as regular street sweeping and work creating a separate storm-sewer system.

Every property owner in the city pays under the plan, including the city, schools, nonprofits, churches, homeowners and businesses.

According to the plan, the city would charge a flat fee of $30 for the first 2,900 square feet of water-impervious surface. That would be the extent of the fee for most single-family homes. Duplexes and two-unit residences would pay $45. Bigger properties with more flat spaces would pay more, at a rate of 4.4 cents per square foot.

Steven Goulet, a Howard Street apartment owner, said councilors were getting too dependent on user fees. He pointed to increasing costs for the city’s trash collection.

“I’m just worried we’re giving taxes a new name – fees,” he said. Those fees will be passed along to tenants.

“I see some of my tenants being overcharged for the areas they are in,” Goulet said. “What can I do? I’m not here to provide free housing.”

But City Administrator Jim Bennett said costs from the new fee should be about the same as tax savings this year. Those savings should be bigger for residential property owners as the new fee plan shifts costs onto commercial and nonprofits.

Councilors also approved two credit plans for large property owners. One gives them a break on the fee if they have their own storm-water collection systems in place or had done work that exceeded state storm-water management guidelines.

But Bob Bremm, physical plant manager for Bates College, said the credits didn’t help. His staff used the city’s guidelines to see what they would have to do to save money on the fee. The work required to meet the credit guidelines was too expensive to make sense.

“On the other hand, we cannot get credit for work we already do according to the rules,” he said. “In effect, the credit is no credit at all.”

Councilor Rousseau said councilors may have to change the fee guidelines later on to make the credits work.

“But this is the way I think it’s going to be from now on,” Rousseau said. “People are tired of paying high property taxes for everything. The only way we can get away from that is to start peeling some of these services off of property taxes and find another way to pay for them. We’re going to become user-communities, I think.”