Water and sewage bills for Banff ratepayers are going up this year.
Town council has approved a 1.6 per cent increase to water rates and a 6.1 per cent hike to sewer rates, but the good news is waste rates for hauling and processing garbage and recycling will go down by 1.3 per cent.
Officials say sewer rates, which are based on the actual cost of treating Banff’s wastewater, are up 6.1 per cent as part of a 20-year phase-in to adequately fund the sewer reserve, while a 1.6 per cent inflationary increase has been applied to water rates.
“I am comfortable this is sufficient to cover our increased operating costs and the required transfer amount to the reserves to fund their long-term sustainability,” said Chris Hughes, Banff’s senior accountant.
Based on average consumption, the average residential monthly charge for water will be $22.51 and $44.89 for sewer. Solid waste bills will be about 20 cents less a month, with an average residential monthly charge of $16.67. Utility bills are mailed out four times a year.
Town councillors indicated Banff’s utility rates are reasonable compared to many other municipalities.
“Hearing the news, it seems like every municipality is starting to raise them quite rapidly,” said Councillor Stavros Karlos. “Calgary’s up 14 per cent this year to catch up to the gap, so the nice thing here is we’ve set our time horizon to adequately fund our reserves.”
As part of the solid waste bylaw, most of the fees for drop-offs to the municipality’s transfer station remain the same. These only apply to commercial and out-of-town deliveries, except for construction waste.
For appliances like stoves, washers and dryers, the fee is $10. It’s also the same for items such as furnaces and hot water tanks. Dropping off paint, printers, televisions and tires are $5 per item. Mattresses are the one exception, going up to $20.
An additional handling charge of $180 per hour will be charged for unsorted loads.
Coun. Ted Christensen unsuccessfully tried to keep Banff’s garbage and recycling rates the same, noting the revenues gained by not reducing the charges could be used to fund other projects.
“I would rather see us keep the fees the same and use the additional revenue by not reducing them to make our operations more efficient,” he said.
But Karlos said town administration has done a lot of hard work to present a business plan in this area, which has led to a decrease in rates for garbage and recycling.
“Those are areas within the municipality that we do have exposure, because those rates don’t seem to go down over time,” said Karlos.
“Administration worked very diligently to present a well thought-out business plan in these areas, in terms of hauling, in terms of additional contracts, in terms of finding efficiencies.”
