As projected by our Ashokan staff, the NYC Water Board has increased water sewer rates by 4.4%. On June 6th, the NYC Water Board met to raise the water sewer rate to $11.63/HCF, effective 7/1/2023.
This represents the largest increase since Mike Bloomberg left office.
All other fixed rates will rise proportionately and the new MCP rate will be $1,184.44/dwelling unit.
NYC is joining the rest of the country in promoting inflation.
On June 6th, the Water Board met to raise water rates by 4.9%, effective July 1st. This may surprise New Yorkers who have grown accustomed to minimal increases during the de Blasio administration.
The new rate will be $4.30 for water and $6.84 for sewer, for a total of $11.14.
We expect the 2023 increase to be even larger, spurred by high interest rates on the Water Board’s huge deb load.
June 6, 2022 Meeting Materials – https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycwaterboard/downloads/pdf/public_notices/wb-meeting-materials-6-6-22.pdf
This morning the New York City Water Board held a meeting to approve the 2.36% water rate increase, effective on July 1, 2018. This is the first rate increase in three years, but also the lowest proposed increase in 15 years.
In the preceding weeks, public hearings have been held in each borough for citizens to raise comments and concern. Alfonso L. Carney Jr., chair of the board, noted that public attendance at these hearings was light and attributed this to the assumption that the proposed rate increase must not be troubling. He acknowledged the points brought up by the few who did participate in the hearing process, and encouraged more concerned citizens to do so in the future. Some substantive points made at these hearings were:
The amended resolution was approved and passed unanimously.
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Allegra Miccio
Public hearings can be long and tedious. The process is boring, and attendance tends to be low. Such is the case with the New York City Water Board’s public hearing. However, these meetings have huge implications for water costs in New York City, so representatives from Ashokan Water Services (that’s us!) went to represent the interests of New York City water consumers and bill payers. On Friday, January 26, 2018 the New York City Water Board held a public hearing at 8:30am followed by a meeting at 9:30am. The issues on the table were whether to repeal the 2.1% increase to water and sewer rates allowed under the December 19, 2017 decision of Prometheus Realty Corp vs. New York City Water Board, and whether to extend the deadline to comply with the terms of the Multifamily Conservation Program to December 31, 2018.
In the Prometheus case, the Water Board was accused of unfairly implementing the 2.1% rate increase and issuing a $183 tax credit to only a certain tax class. To address the rate increase issue of the Prometheus decision, the Water Board hired Amawalk Consulting Group to assess their revenues and financial standing. Their findings showed that the Water Board is in good financial standing. This means that the 2.1% water rate increase is not necessary to fund the FY2018 budget, and that water and wastewater fees are reasonable as they currently stand. Although no rate increases are being adopted at the moment, the board will meet again in April with a rate proposal for FY2019.
A representative spoke on behalf of the Rent Stabilization Association, commending the decision to repeal the rate increase. He also suggested that all tax-classes should be considered to receive credit, for there was no basis upon which one tax class should be singled out. He advocated for a full elimination of the $183 rebate, and in favor of continued rate freezes. He expressed belief that the Multifamily Conservation Program (MCP) should be expanded to include additional buildings willing to meet the qualifications. The current eligibility base is too small for substantial water conservation in the city to be realized- a belief that we share here at Ashokan Water Services. (Check out more of our opinions on the matter here!)
The 2017 Water Rate Schedule stated that properties that did not provide evidence of MCP compliance would receive a penalty charge of 10% of their bill. Compliance includes the property having four or more units, wireless meter reading devices, and proof that conservation efforts are being made such that water consumption decreases. However, the penalty was never assessed since its proposal a year ago, even though approximately 10,000 properties have not provided evidence of compliance dating back to 2012. At this meeting, the board proposed to extend the compliance deadline to December of 2018. To implement this, the Department of Environmental Protection claims that they will “immediately begin enhanced outreach and engagement with the affected properties.”
However, no insight was provided as to how the DEP will do this. Representing Ashokan Water Services, Hershel Weiss voiced his concerns at the public hearing. Our main qualm is that MCP regulations have not been enforced in the past, so no one complied with the guidelines. Albeit, these process guidelines are still unclear, and no one understands who has to submit applications. Our request (which Hershel has voiced at approximately 14 different Water Board public hearings over the years) is simple- the Water Board must write a clear directive stating specific guidelines, a checklist for compliance, and who needs to submit applications.
The Water Board assured everyone at the hearing that they would take all comments and concerns into consideration. “We don’t come predisposed,” said Alfonso Carney, the chair of the Water Board, “we will use what the members of the public say.” This sentiment is expressed at every meeting, and nothing substantial comes of it. We did not expect this meeting to yield different results, but our fingers are crossed nonetheless.
The Water Board with reconvene in a few months. Updates regarding their public hearings and meetings can be found here.
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Allegra Miccio
A pilot program, by definition, is to be short-term, small-scale, and experimental. They are feasibility studies, done to help determine whether or not the proposed project will work if implemented on a large scale. Since these programs are experimental, it is expected that the hypotheses are tested and comprehensive reports are published detailing successes and failures. It can be argued that programs such as the Parking Lot Stormwater Pilot Program have been deliberately ignored, and perhaps never intended to be experimental after all.
Because the Parking Lot Stormwater Pilot Program was implemented under the umbrella of New York’s Green Infrastructure Plan, one would expect that data collected regarding feasibility would be included in the Green Infrastructure Annual Reports. In 2012, the first year after the pilot program was introduced, the GI report noted that the DEP was still identifying stand-alone parking lots which were to be charged for runoff starting in 2013. In 2013, a rate increase from $0.05 to $0.06 per square foot was reported, as well as an increase in the number of lots being charged, and the total revenue generated from the program. The 2014 GI report noted another rate increase ($0.06 to $0.063 per square foot) and the usual statistics on revenue.
Notably, the 2014 report provided the first piece of useful information about the Parking Lot Stormwater Pilot Program- that it wasn’t working. Of course, the DEP did not outright state that the program was a failure. Instead, the report reads, “no green infrastructure exemptions have been given to date.” This means that parking lot owners would rather pay the stormwater fee than install green infrastructure on their properties. However, the purpose of the Green Infrastructure Program as a whole was to promote the development of GI throughout the city, not to devise revenue-generating tactics. In order for this program to be successful, the prospect of being exempt from the charge needs to actually entice people to install GI.
After the 2014 report, the pilot program should have ended or been modified to spark the desired change. The hypothesis was tested, and it failed. Perhaps the fee was not high enough for anyone to feel burdened by it, or retrofitting parking lots was more expensive than the fee itself. Nonetheless, the pilot program continued. The 2015 GI Annual Report states that, “previous annual reports describe the Parking Lot Stormwater Charge Pilot Program and can be found on DEP’s website.” What this reads is that the DEP gave up. They had seen no results from the pilot program, but were unwilling to cease collecting the revenue it generated. In 2016, the annual report again failed to include any relevant study, and it is safe to expect the 2017 report won’t either.
As of now, the Parking Lot Stormwater Pilot Program isn’t much of a pilot program. It has been in place for seven years, and its short-term feasibility was disproved back in 2014. The program continues, unfairly charging people while no research is being done and no dedicated reports are being put together. Instead, each year a short sentence is dedicated to the program in GI reports, which somehow passes as enough of a report to keep the program running under the guise of being a pilot.
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Allegra Miccio
We’ve been tracking the DEP’s new Denial of Access and Theft of Services regulations for a long time. The last thing the DEP told the public about these new regulations was that there’d be a 120-day amnesty period beginning July 1 during which time customers found to be stealing water and/or denying access will not pay the full amount demanded by the new regulations.
The DEP recently released the specific numbers that they intend to use during the amnesty program, and I must say, they are quite reasonable. The new regulations authorize the DEP to charge customers found to be stealing water and/or denying access for water consumption at the 90th percentile. The attributed consumption and charges are detailed in this post. (Be aware though, that since Fiscal Year 2010’s water rate increase was only 12.9% and not the originally announced 14%, the actual costs for this attributed consumption is slightly lower than is listed.)
During the amnesty period, customers are only going to be charged at the 50th percentile, which is the following for commercial properties:
Meter Size – Annual Attributed Consumption Rate (Gallons per Year)
5/8″ and less 50,000
3/4″ or more and less than 1.5″ 80,000
1.5″ or more and less than 3″ 280,000
3″ or more and less than 4″ 550,000
4″ or more and less than 6″ 1,300,000
6″ or more and less than 8″ 2,300,000
8″ or more and less than 10″ 4,600,000
10″ or greater 38,000,000
and the following for residential units:
First Dwelling Unit 70,000
Each Additional Unit 60,000
In dollars, this comes to:
Meter Size – Annual Attributed Cost
5/8″ and less $ 452
3/4″ or more and less than 1.5″ 723
1.5″ or more and less than 3″ 2,530
3″ or more and less than 4″ 4,971
4″ or more and less than 6″ 11,748
6″ or more and less than 8″ 20,786
8″ or more and less than 10″ 41,572
10″ or greater 343,417
and:
First Dwelling Unit $633
Each Additional Unit 542
I expressed my frustration when I thought it was too high; it would be unfair of me not to express satisfaction at these extremely reasonable figures.
Water Watch NYC 