Consultants helping guide the Chautauqua Lake Protection and Rehabilitation Agency through the process to possibly levy a new tax to pay for Chautauqua Lake maintenance activities are recommending tax rates based on Equivalent Residential Units.

The system is often used to figure out storm water utility fees for different property types by incorporating impervious cover on an average residential property. Impervious cover is defined as developed surfaces that do not infiltrate water, including roofs, driveways and roads, and gravel surfaces.

Barton & Loguidice is proposing a three-tier tax level. Tier 1 would be landowners who have lakefront property; Tier 2 would be landowners who have access to Chautauqua Lake but not lakefront property; and Tier 3 would be all landowners who live in the Chautauqua Lake watershed. The Chautauqua Lake watershed includes some or all properties in the towns of Ellery, Ellicott, Busti, Harmony, North Harmony, Sherman, Chautauqua, and Stockton.

A formal recommendation to the Chautauqua County Legislature could come as early as this month.

Before the CLPRA makes a decision, board members should give the public a true estimation of costs. Right now, no one knows how much money the CLPRA is thinking of raising through a tax. Examples given at the last CLPRA meeting used a $10 million placeholder figure — a number that had an average Tier 1 residence paying $458 a year, a Tier 2 residence paying $451 a year and a Tier 3 property paying $194 a year. Commercial property owners would pay more than residential depending on the amount of impervious cover they have.

When this process began, we called on a public budget for Chautauqua Lake maintenance activities. In our opinion such a figure is needed simply to divide existing bed tax allocations for lake activities, but it’s even more necessary for any lake tax. Taxpayers around Chautauqua Lake already pay some of the highest property taxes in the county — and adding more to that burden could kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Doing nothing could also kill that same goose.

So, it stands to reason that decision makers and the public who will pay these taxes need to have an accurate representation of what the county is actually talking about.

How much money is needed each year and how much can be paid with existing bed tax money? That should be our starting point — not the type of tax we should levy.