DNV utilities on the rise
District of North Vancouver homeowners will see a near double-digit percentage increase in their utility bills next year after district council voted to approve a nine-per-cent fee hike at its Dec. 12 meeting.
That translates into district homeowners paying $1,294 per household in 2012 versus $1,177 in 2011 for water, sewerage and waste collection.
The bulk of the new costs are in water and sewer rate increases, something Coun. Alan Nixon said are mainly the result of regional charges.
“Close to 50 per cent of those charges for sewer and water were attributable to increases from Metro Vancouver,” Nixon told The Outlook.
By far the largest cost increase of the three utilities will be for sewerage which jumps 15.8 per cent to $461 in the new year, over $398 in 2011.
Water charges are set to rise by $41 to $550 annually, a 8.1-per-cent increase over the $509 household water bill for 2011.
For waste collection costs, the breakdown is a bit more complex.
For single-family homes, garbage and recycling pick-up will cost $13 more than in 2011, a 4.8-per-cent increase, topping $283 this year. Included in that is the district’s levy for garbage and organics collection which was approved to reach $199.50 next year, a 6.5-per-cent increase over the 2011 rate of $187.29.
The remainder of the cost is the breakdown between single- and multi-family unit collection costs which for a single-family home will increase from $82.71 to $83.50. For a multi-family unit, that increase will be comparably small in 2012, rising just $0.80 from $79.92 to $80.72.
While Metro garbage tipping fees are expected to skyrocket over the next five years from the current $107 per tonne to $205 per tonne in 2016, district staff are hedging on greater district diversion of waste to composting and recycling to save money on the growing tipping fees.
tco
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