Centerville OKs new fee for electric vehicle charging stations

Credit: FILE

Credit: FILE

CENTERVILLE — Drivers using electric vehicle charging stations in Centerville will soon have to pay an hourly fee in a move designed to avoid extended vehicle stays.

Starting next month, it will cost $1 an hour for users of the six ports at three new electric vehicle charging stations, a service that has been free, said Kate Bostdorff, Centerville communications director.

“We’re not interested in making money. ... But we’d like to cover our expenses,” she said. “And I think there is an expectation that people who now drive electric vehicles understand that there’ll be some charges associated with that.”

Credit: Contributed

Credit: Contributed

Both the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which provided grants for new stations across the state, and the installer recommended charging per kilowatt hour, Bostdorff said.

“But here we’ve had an issue with cars just parking for days plugged in. So, we wanted to discourage that,” she added.

Centerville has one new dual charging station in the parking lot behind the municipal building at 100 W. Spring Valley Road and two others in the Uptown public parking lot behind 33 W. Franklin St., officials said.

Since activating all of the stations last month, the average charge time has been about four hours and 15 minutes, Bostdorff said.

The new fee will start in about 30 days. Centerville City Council approved the plan after a Monday night public hearing on the issue.

The fees will help “recoup the costs of maintenance expenses for the equipment,” according to the legislation.

Centerville “may adjust the fees up to 10 percent … annually without the need for city council action,” it states.

The Ohio EPA awarded $37,500 in grant funding to the city to install new stations.

Centerville was among many Dayton-area communities to receive state funding. Others included in Bellbrook, Dayton, Fairborn, Huber Heights, Kettering, Lebanon and Washington Twp., records show.

Austin Landing, the Dayton Art Institute, the Oregon District, Caesar Creek State Park and the Rose Music Center were among the 29 regional sites the Ohio EPA selected in awarding about $3.25 million statewide.

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