Oct. 10--A law allowing property owners to lease sewer credits from the city of Marathon might pass just in time for Maytag Clean Laundry owner Donna Farmer.

"If I wasn't able to lease them, we wouldn't be able to open. Ed refused to take the assessment on his property," Farmer said of Ed Putz, who owns the building at 60th Street and U.S. 1 where the laundry is located.

Farmer is set to reopen -- she hopes next week -- after a June fire destroyed the inside of her business and forced her to replace many washers and dryers. The building has new paint, flooring, walls, windows and doors.

"The whole place is completely new," she said. "I can't wait to be open."

Sewer credit is the short name for equivalent dwelling units, or EDUs, when it comes to sewer hookups.

EDUs represent the amount of water used by any particular property -- and in Farmer's case, it's a lot. She faces a $150,000 up-front bill or a $260,000 cost over 20 years for the 31.7 EDUs she was assessed to hook up to the city sewer system.

If the 31.7 EDUs aren't accepted for the Laundromat property, it can't reopen as a Laundromat.

Councilman Dick Ramsay originally floated the idea at an August City Council meeting and said the ordinance would be beneficial to the city.

"I'm thrilled the public and council accepted the idea. We modified [it] to make it more people-friendly and I think it will assure the city of an ability to have a Laundromat, and there are other areas that are going to benefit," he said.

The sewer-credit ordinance is on the City Council's meeting agenda for Tuesday. The council meets at 5:30 p.m. at the Marathon Government Center.

The council will consider another EDU-related ordinance Tuesday, as well. That one, floated by Mayor Mike Cinque, would allow property owners to transfer or sell EDUs after paying their initial assessment.

Cinque said that many assessments are amortized over 20 years and that uses in the city will change over that time.

"Someone maybe builds a restaurant and moves to a new location. [The original spot] becomes an office building and then they should have the right to transfer it to another location," Cinque said. "The area that they move to will have to have the capacity."

-----

To see more of the Keynoter, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.keysnet.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.