Infrastructure problems.
City workers deal with a broken water main on Elgin Street in January. City council has approved a decade of water rate hikes to help pay for much-needed infrastructure upgrades across the city.
Laura Mueller
Ottawa residents can expect a six per cent hike on their water bills this year with the prospect of regular increases over the next decade, after city councillors approved a set of proposals on Feb. 22 to help fund major water and sewer repairs.
The 2012 increase will be followed by seven per cent increases in 2013 and 2014, six per cent hikes in 2015 and 2016 and five per cent increases each year after that until 2021.
The 2012 hike will cost the average household approximately $37.82 per year, or roughly 75 cents extra per week.
A staff report said the city needs to put $2.7 billion into repairing and reconstructing the city’s water and sewer system over the next decade, in order to maintain the current system and safeguard it against unexpected problems.
However the report calls for a slightly lower investment of $2.1 billion over the next 10 years, with a higher level of capital investment concentrated in the first four years. The projects would be funded jointly by the rate hikes, new debt and existing water and sewer reserves.
Many water and sewer projects are being advanced by the city’s Ottawa on the Move program, which will rebuild hundreds of kilometres of roads between 2012 and 2015. While the roads are being fixed, the city plans to also rebuild the water and sewer infrastructure underneath.
Environment committee chairwoman Maria McRae said this is a responsible approach.
“No one wants a road ripped up twice,” she said. Rebuilding a road and then ripping it up two years later to replace water and sewer is too disruptive, she added.
McRae said replacing water mains is “not as sexy” as opening a brand new community centre or other city facility, but is paramount to the well-being of the city.
Apart from providing safe, clean drinking water for residents, maintaining Ottawa’s $18 billion water and sewer system also protects businesses from disruptive breaks like the recent rupture on Elgin Street, and avoids water bans like the one Ottawa South residents endured last summer after Woodroffe’s water main burst.
“I’m confident the rate we’ve put forward will deal with the situations that residents have told us to address,” she said.
The city’s environment committee unanimously approved the rate hikes at its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 21 and the long term financial plan was passed by council the following day.
With files from Laura Mueller