Tiering water and sewer rates could give some Port Moody residents a break – but not others

Some residents of Port Moody could be paying less for their water and sewer services. 

But others might pay more if the city implements a new tiered fee structure for those utilities.

Today (Oct. 19), council’s finance committee will look at a proposal to reduce water and sewer rates for housing that’s generally considered to be affordable, like secondary suites and laneway houses.

But, as Paul Rockwood, the city’s general manager of financial services, told council’s committee of the whole on Oct. 5, utility rates are self-balancing, meaning “if we lower one, we’ll have to increase the cost to other types of housing.”

According to Rockwood, the tiered rate scheme would be an interim measure while the city continues to study the costs and implications of eventually installing meters on all homes and businesses. He said other municipalities around Metro Vancouver have adopted similar tiered rates in anticipation of a move to meters. 

Only Richmond and Vancouver are currently fully-metered.

While Port Moody residents pay a flat rate for water and sewer that is the same whether they live in a single-family home, townhouse, condo, secondary suite or laneway house, a tiered system would significantly lower the annual rate for secondary suites and laneway houses and reduce it a bit for townhouses and condos. Single-family homes would pay the full annual increase, as would offices. 

The rate of increase for restaurants and service stations would also moderate slightly, while not-for-profit structures that include churches would only be required to pay half the anticipated annual rate increase.

In a presentation on the proposal given to council Oct. 5, Port Moody’s manager of financial planning, Tyson Ganske, explained a tiered system could lower annual utility rates by as much as $224 for secondary suites and laneway houses while increasing them by up to $31 for the city’s 6,006 single-family homes, depending on which of three possible tiering scenarios council chooses to pursue.

In Coquitlam, single-family homes pay the city’s full rate for water, while townhouses and condos pay 60 per cent and secondary suites pay 40 per cent. 

In Port Coquitlam, single-family homes are charged the full rate, while townhouses are discounted six per cent and condos get an 11 per cent break.

Rockwood said no amount of tiering would result in a system that’s truly equitable to the amount the utilities are used as a secondary suite with four residents could use more water than a single resident of a detached home; only metering could achieve that. 

But, he added, that’s still at least a couple of years away. Rockwood said a metering program would require a “significant investment” in infrastructure, maintenance and administration. 

Currently Port Moody requires new industrial, commercial, institutional and multi-family developments to install water meters while new single-family homes must be set up to accept the future installation of meters.