Lubbock City Council forms citizen committee to look at sewer repair ordinance
The Lubbock City Council on Tuesday finalized the reversion of an October ordinance that left some homeowners paying thousands to repair portions of sewer service lines and created a committee to look at how to move forward.
The council approved on second reading an ordinance to revert a change adopted on Oct. 10 last year allowing city-approved, licensed plumbers to repair private lateral sewer service lines — the pipes that go from the sewer main in the alley to one's home or business — in the public right-of-way, or up to the property owner's fence, in most cases. From 2006 until October, only city crews repaired this portion of these lines, which are owned by the property owners.
'Just not right': Lubbock City Council backtracks on controversial sewer ordinance
The October 2023 decision, which became effective in January, returned the ordinance to its pre-2006 state, placing the responsibility and cost to repair that portion of the line back on property owners. But since then, Lubbock homeowners have complained of pricey repairs, with plumbers charging thousands of dollars to replace a few feet of line.
City councilmembers in March admitted they got it wrong and didn't do enough research before implementing the original change. On Tuesday, the council voted to form a citizen committee to study the issue.
The committee, recommended by Councilwoman Jennifer Wilson and Councilwoman Shelia Patterson Harris, will consist of 11 people — one citizen from each city council district, a mayor-appointed chair and four plumbers. The council will appoint the members at its next regular meeting.
The committee is tasked with making a policy recommendation to the city council regarding lateral sewer line repairs. The deadline for the committee to report to the council was set as the first city council meeting in July.
"Shelia and I both felt very passionate about this after our last meeting … that maybe we all made some decisions hastily without having all of the information present, weather that's from our citizens (or) our plumbing community, and we need to take a better look at that," Wilson said in support of the committee's creation.
The resolution appointing the committee passed the council 6-1 with Councilwoman Latrelle Joy dissenting.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Lubbock City Council forms committee to look at sewer repair ordinance
