Directors vote to raise water rates

Water infrastructure is becoming more expensive and that has prompted the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) to charge people more for water.

For property owners with a single-family dwelling in the regional water service, the increase works out to about $19, based on a five per cent user fee increase and a two per cent parcel tax increase. The current water bill is approximately $531.

Industrial, commercial and institutional water users are charged according to use through water meter usage fees. That rate has also increased five per cent.

Rates have increased for the South and North Pender Harbour Water Service Areas, as well. Directors voted to raise user and metered usage fees for South Pender by 5.5 per cent and two per cent for the parcel tax.

North Pender saw the largest increase, with its user and metered usage fees rising by 8.5 per cent and parcel tax going up two per cent.

At a Jan. 24 infrastructure services meeting, where the rates were initially proposed, Area A director Leonard Lee asked why the increases are higher in the Pender Harbour service areas. A “fulsome answer” has yet to be established, said Tina Perreault, chief financial officer for the district. She suggested that because the area has fewer users, and because several maintenance and capital upgrades are needed, the charges are higher. “You have less users in a system to pay,” she said.

In addition to increased water meter rates, commercial water users in the regional water service will also now be charged a $25 fee for manual water meter readings, to a maximum of $300 per year, to offset the costs associated with staff conducting readings manually. Users that get manual water meter readings in North and South Pender are already charged this fee.

The need for the widespread increase has to do with “several significant projects” underway, all at various stages, including the groundwater investigation, the Chapman Lake drawdown, the raw water reservoir and universal water metering.

The projects, said Perreault, “will have a significant impact on future rates,” though the total costs of those projects haven’t been finalized.

Mayor Darnelda Siegers, director for Sechelt, asked whether rates would have to be revisited once the costs of those projects are confirmed following budget deliberations.

“The short answer is yes, the whole entire model will need to be revisited,” said Perreault, adding, “Essentially this is a stop-gap to when a more material plan will be established.”

Before directors unanimously voted in favour of the increases, Elphinstone director Donna McMahon told the board, “I added all this up and according to my math, I am still paying less than $1.50 a day for clean, fresh drinking water delivered to my home 24/7 and in any quantity I care to use, which I have to say, is a bargain.”

The last time rates rose by this margin was in 2014 and 2015, when residential rates in the regional water service rose by $21 and $18, respectively. The 2014 residential water bill was $481.

The bylaw that guides water charges received other amendments, including adding a deadline for property owners to advise the SCRD of their farmland classification. The change would require property owners to give notice by Jan. 5 of each year or else they wouldn’t receive the parcel tax reduction.

The bylaw amendments, which include the rate hikes, were adopted at the SCRD board meeting on Jan. 31.