For the 16th consecutive year, New York City residents’ water bill will swell.
The seven-member water board approved a 7 percent hike in water rates at a vote Friday morning.
“The 7 percent 2013 fiscal year rate increase is the lowest increase in seven years and is 25 percent lower than the increase projected at this time last year,” said Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Carter Strickland.
The increase will add more than $60 per year to the average one family home’s water bill.
“When an agency is proud that you only have to raise your rates by 7 percent, than we know we have a problem,” said Assemblymember Phil Goldfeder during a public hearing on the rate hikes at Christ the King High School on Thursday, April 26.
At the meeting, the DEP blamed much of the rate hikes on mandated projects from the state and federal government that require the DEP to perform projects despite receiving no funds. That is the primary driver of the rates, the agency said.
This fiscal year, those mandates cost homeowners $253, according to the DEP.
Edward Schubert, an Ozone Park resident who bought a house in the neighborhood was one of the few residents to speak at the hearing.
“The middle class is really suffering right now,” Schubert told the water board. “It’s the wrong time for these increases.”
In the seven years since moving into his house, Schubert has seen his water rates almost double.
The new rate will go into effect on July 1.
