metro vancouver fees to hit $897 per home next year
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“we understand the pressure residents are feeling from rising costs," mike hurley, chair of the metro vancouver boards, said in a statement announcing the new fees of $897 per year on average
nick procaylo
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metro vancouver households will pay an average of $75 per month for regional utilities like water, waste and sewage, next year, according to a press release published late friday.
that works out to $897 for the year, on average — a 2.5 per cent increase from last year’s $875 charge.
“we understand the pressure residents are feeling from rising costs,” mike hurley, chair of the metro vancouver board, said in a statement announcing the new fees.
“we identified more than $360 million in operational savings over the next five years, substantially reducing costs for ratepayers across the region,” hurley said.
the savings came from deferring costs by reducing and delaying a number of capital spending projects, according to the news release.
lis muri, a councillor for the district of north vancouver and metro vancouver board member, voted against the budget, saying “i cannot add any more cost to my residents.”
postmedia reached out to half a dozen metro vancouver board members for details on the deferrals but didn’t hear back in time for publication.
sewage and drinking water make up the bulk of the costs. the average household cost for sewage will be $534 next year. households will pay an average of $208 for drinking water, $74 for solid waste and $81 for services like parks, regional planning, air quality management and other services
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the cost increase is significantly less than the 25 per cent jump in fees from 2023 to 2024.
metro vancouver has recently struggled with cost overruns on major projects and concerns about excessive spending by the regional authority.
the north shore wastewater treatment plant project, originally budgeted at $700 million with a completion target of 2020, is now nearing $4 billion. metro vancouver and acciona, the original contractor for the project who was fired by metro, are suing one another over the project.
over the summer, the authority paused a review into cost overruns for the north shore facility, citing the court battle.
“a lot of those cost increases are tied to federal regulatory requirements,” muri said of the overruns. she called for more federal and provincial funding for large-scale infrastructure projects that benefit the entire region.
“we don’t have federal funding for the big bridges and the treatment plants and the water plants that we need money for. we can’t just do it on taxes,” she said.
metro vancouver did manage to trim roughly $4 billion from the budget for the iona wastewater treatment plant, which had initially ballooned to nearly $10 billion in 2021 up from about $1.9 billion in 2019. some of the savings came from deferring parts of the project that were not directly related to regulatory requirements.
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actual rates for metro vancouver services will vary based on where residents live. fees are collected by local municipalities as part of their tax and utility bills.
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