Toronto flushes plan for stormwater fee
Mayor John Tory helps shelve proposal for a dedicated fee to fund stormwater management.

thestar.com
By DAVID RIDER
May 16, 2017

Toronto has opted, after years of study, to not follow Mississauga’s lead with a dedicated levy to help pay the huge and rising costs of stormwater runoff and basement flooding protection.

Mayor John Tory’s executive committee on Tuesday shelved indefinitely, at his urging, a city staff proposal to go back to stakeholders for more consultations and then, in 2019, give councillors options for a stormwater charge.

Currently, Torontonians pay for pipe replacement and other parts of a stormwater management plan through water fees, based on consumption. City staff had suggested shifting more of the costs to owners of homes and businesses with the biggest hard surfaces, such as parking lots or roofs, responsible for the most rain and snow runoff.

In 2013, council told staff to look at options including a dedicated levy and big hikes in water fees.

Two years later council directed staff to draft the stormwater plan based on funding from a dedicated charge, with a possible extra charge for homeowners with parking pads.

Tory noted issues identified in the newest staff report, including an expected demand for exemptions from school boards, no guarantees that landlords’ savings from the change would be passed on to tenants, and residents wanting any fee based on the specifics of their property.

The mayor suggested, unlike staff, that those problems are insurmountable, so the idea should be shelved.

“The report says what you have to try to do here, if you want to proceed in 2019 or 2029 or next week, is try to unscramble an egg,” Tory said before his executive committee colleagues voted in favour of his deferral motion.

Councillor Gord Perks, a former Greenpeace campaigner, called the move shortsighted.

“With most of our beaches and part of the island under water, there’s never been a better time to provide a financial incentive for large property owners to manage their stormwater better,” Perks said in an interview.

“By making it expensive to have a lot of water running off your property, we provide an incentive for people to manage it onsite so it doesn’t enter our storm sewers and flood our beaches.”

Mississauga added last year, after a vote by that city’s council, a stormwater charge on Peel region water bills ranging from $50 to $170 per year, depending on rooftop size. More than $30 million in annual revenues are being pumped into a dedicated fund to pay for stormwater infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.

Toronto’s annual costs include about $70 million spent on basement flooding protection measures.

In July 2013 a storm dumped 126 mm of rain on the city, flooding thousands of basements - often with overflow from city sewers that couldn’t handle the deluge. More recently, Toronto got almost one normal month’s worth of rain in a week.

Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, who rallied his Ward 7 York West residents to kill the proposed surcharge he dubbed a “roof tax”, said “I told you so.”

“I said it’s not going to work, the suburbs are going to be upset - short of punching me in the chops, everybody just disregarded what some of us had to say,” Mammoliti said.