Frontage billing is the enemy of anyone who cares about conservation or the environment. Charging people a fixed amount for water, regardless of how much of it they use, encourages waste and an indifference to the need to conserve. With this in mind, why is the city reinstating frontage billing?

There are two basic reasons why the city prefers frontage billing:

1. Frontage bills are easier to collect – For buildings with a mortgage, the bank usually pays frontage bills. They know how much to pay, they know when to pay and they don’t want to be caught in a situation where a building owner that they loaned money to has a loan sold for overdue water charges. With metered billing, the amount varies from bill to bill and the city has to chase after property owners in order to ensure payment.
2. Frontage bills go out once a year – The city sends frontage bills annually, as opposed to metered bills which go out quarterly. This means that the more buildings there are on frontage, the more money the city has to work with at the start of every fiscal year and the less money they have to wait for down the road.

This reliance on frontage billing despite its incongruence with the city’s necessary conservation goals is a perfect example of the current administration’s love of short-sighted financial quick fixes instead of long term financial goals that will, in the long-run, reduce the operating cost of the DEP.