Stormwater charge to appear on Vaughan water bills starting in June

YorkRegion.com
March 23, 2017
Adam Martin-Robbins  

When you tear open your water bill in June, you’ll notice a charge that wasn’t there before. But don’t be alarmed as most of you will actually be saving money, city officials say.

Vaughan has adopted a new approach to funding the system that deals with stormwater (rain and melting snow not absorbed by the ground).

And that’s why the separate charge will appear on your bill.

Until now, Vaughan collected taxes for its stormwater system through the wastewater fee and your property taxes.

But at 6.85 per cent of the wastewater fee, the city wasn’t collecting enough to repair and replace infrastructure while also implementing measures to improve water quality and address the rising number of severe flooding events resulting from climate change, said Chris Wolnik, Vaughan’s manager of wastewater and stormwater services.

So the city introduced a separate charge to generate more funding, primarily from large industrial and commercial operations.

Under the new system, property owners with massive parking lots — think Vaughan Mills and Canada’s Wonderland — that generate a lot of stormwater run-off, pay the most at about $16,700.

Condo owners pay a fraction of that.

The charge for high-density developments is $184, which is divided among the units in the building.

For the average homeowner of a single-detached home, the fee is about $50 a year, rather than $100 under the current system.

 “The homeowner is paying a lot less because they’re using the system less, but the big industrial/commercial folks are paying, potentially, more than they used to because they’re using the wastewater infrastructure more,” Wolnik said. “It’s a user fee type of approach as opposed to our previous one-size-fits-all approach.”

Money generated by the charge will go directly toward the costs of operating, building and maintaining the stormwater system, Wolnik said.

It will also go toward implementing measures to deal with flooding and erosion as well monitoring water quality in storm ponds and taking proactive steps to prevent contaminants such as fertilizers, oil and pesticides from getting into local rivers and streams.

To find out more, visit www.vaughan.ca/stormwater.