Property owners are boiling mad

As the District of Summerland continues plugging holes in its water policies, concerns keep bubbling up to the surface. Among them are fairness complaints related to the district’s latest plan to eliminate unmetered second domestic service lines at 244 agricultural properties with less than two acres of arable land. Such second lines were installed decades ago for irrigation and contain treated drinking water.

The plan, which was presented to council in August, calls for separating those 244 properties into three groups based on size, then dealing with each group in successive years.

First up are 150 properties that are smaller than a half-acre, owners of which are expecting a so-called choices letter from the district outlining their options.

“Although they’re calling it a choices letter, I would call it an ultimatum letter: either you buy (a pit meter) for $4,100 or you get disconnected,” said Glen Jones, whose property on Switchback Road is among those in the first group of 150.

The letter hasn’t actually been sent yet, but a draft version was presented to council at its Aug. 24 meeting.

At that meeting, council also learned the property owners’ cost for the district to install a pit meter — which is buried at the property line and measures total water usage before the line splits — had risen from $2,300 in October 2019, when customers like Jones were first put on notice, to $4,100 as of today, due to the district’s rising labour and supply costs.

The price to simply disconnect a second service line is pegged at $1,100, but the district will absorb that cost.

As if that’s not inconsistent enough, continued Jones, he believes some agricultural properties with less than two arable acres received free pit meters in 2010 when provincial grant funding allowed the district to cover the cost of converting thousands of homes to metered use.

“On the day that (meter) was supposed to be installed, (the district) told us they had run out,” said Jones.

Kris Johnson, the district’s director of works, disputes that.

“The reason the meter installations at no charge stopped was not because there were not enough to go around, it was because in 2011 or 2012 direction was provided that for properties under two arable acres, property owners would have to pay for the meter installation,” Johnson said in an email to The Herald. Jones disagrees.

“We actually know the property our pit meter went to and it was under two acres,” he said.

The 244 smaller lots like Jones’, eventually received in-home meters on their main domestic lines, while the second lines stayed unmetered. In 2015, the district started charging a flat fee for those second lines based on arable acres.

Jones agrees with the district’s argument that all water customers should be charged based on usage, but feels the process has been flawed and owners of smaller agricultural properties are being unfairly penalized — and all without much consultation.

“I think the fair approach would be to provide pit meters at the cost of the District of Summerland, and that the cost should be recouped through the usage,” said Jones.

Council at its Aug. 24 meeting decided to stay the course, but agreed to knock down the cost of a pit meter to $3,500 by subtracting a 15% administration fee, and to have staff come back with options for property owners to pay back the fee over time through a tax of some sort.

Those options are tentatively set to be delivered to council at its Oct. 26 meeting, according to Johnson.