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Sahuarita's Town Council on Monday began what may be more than a decade of steadily increasing fees to pay for expansion of the town's sewer system.

The town's financial director also said he'll soon ask the council to consider increasing sewer- user fees for homes already hooked up to the system.

Council members voted unanimously Monday to boost the cost of connecting new homes to the town's sewer system by an average of 25.7 percent, to an average of $3,876 per home from $3,084 per home.

The connection-fee hike for new homes in Rancho Sahuarita and Rancho Resort will be effective Oct. 1, followed by an 8 percent hike on Jan. 1.

Sahuarita businessman Alex Jácome urged council members in a public hearing before the vote to consider phasing in the fee hikes over a long period of time.

"There's no disputing the fact that the sewer situation is in crisis," said Jácome, who's also a member of the town's Economic Development Commission.

But the council should gradually increase the fees to lessen their impact on the sluggish housing market, he said.

Vice Mayor Phil Conklin said he understands Jácome's point. "But," he added, "we have not been keeping up with raising these fees … and I think it's important that we get these on the books as soon as possible."

Town officials are scrambling to expand the town's wastewater-treatment plant to keep up with residential growth that has been booming in recent years. The plant is now at its 490,000-gallon-per-day capacity, requiring the town to transport sewage by truck to a county facility in Green Valley until an interim expansion to 690,000 gallons per day is completed in October.

A.C. Marriotti, the town's finance director, laid out the need for the fee hike — and several more that will be necessary between now and 2023, to keep up with costs — in an analysis outlining three options that he prepared for the council.

His analysis states that the town will need to invest some $53.5 million by 2023 to expand the system enough to handle anticipated growth in the area served by the system.

Town officials had intended for the utility to be self-sufficient when they created an enterprise fund for it after taking over its operation in fiscal year 2002-03.

One option shows no fee increase and would require subsidies to begin in fiscal 2010-11, when the town would have to pay $335,089 into the utility's capital-expansion fund. Under this scenario, the analysis projects the town would have to subsidize the fund by a total of $30.4 million by fiscal 2022-23.