Stormwater hike less than 10 per cent

Ottawa homeowners could pay — very, very slightly — less in stormwater fees in 2019 than originally planned, thanks to a motion passed at environment committee Tuesday that will rework the proposed stormwater fee increase in the city’s draft budget to keep it in the single digits.

When the draft budget was released in early February, it called for a 10.8-per-cent increase to the stormwater fee.

Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt, chair of the standing committee on environmental protection, water and waste management, then told this newspaper he was working with city staff to see if it was possible to bring this proposed increase down without resorting to “smoke-and-mirrors” tactics of the like seen in the 2018 budget, when council borrowed money to deflate the projected stormwater fee increase from 13 per cent to five per cent, facing an election year.

“It didn’t really fix it,” said Moffatt.

This year, staff advised Moffatt that it would be possible to reduce the rate increase to 9.8 per cent “without a major impact in stormwater services,” by cutting the stormwater services budget by $410,000 — money that would have gone mainly toward studies, staff said Tuesday.

Stormwater is the rain and snowmelt that trickles into culverts and sewers, and the stormwater fee pays for infrastructure to collect this water so roads and properties don’t flood.

Landowners connected to municipal drinking water and waste-water services are used to seeing and paying this fee, but it only began appearing on non-connected property tax bills in 2017, at a phased-in rate. By 2020, those property owners will be paying the full fee.

At a 10.8-per-cent increase, an urban homeowner connected to municipal services would have seen their stormwater fee increase by $12 in 2019 to $129. Under a 9.8-percent increase, they’ll pay $1 less. For a rural homeowner who isn’t connected to those municipal services, the smaller increase will save them, on average, 45 cents, for a total annual stormwater fee of $48.10.

“This year I just wanted to make it a true below 10 (per cent increase), and that’s what it is now. And then hopefully as we go forward it will keep on working its way down,” said Moffatt.

Tuesday’s environment committee meeting also saw a motion passed instructing staff to come up with a plan to support residents with trees on private property that were damaged by last September’s tornado and are now in need of stump grinding.

“The trees were 100, 150 years old, they were huge,” said Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Keith Egli, whose ward includes the tornado-ravaged Arlington Woods neighbourhood. “It came as a shock to many people that their insurance company doesn’t pick it up.”

With some residents dealing with multiple stumps on private property, “It’s a significant expense,” he said.

Having been denied provincial assistance, Egli said, the city is in talks with NGOs, charities and private industry to see what resources they might be able to leverage for affected property owners.

Egli also moved a motion, which carried Tuesday, to recommend council approve that any surplus in the Hydro Ottawa dividend received during this term of council be “directed toward energy efficiency, conservation or renewable energy programs within Ottawa,” with specific programs approved by the environment committee.

Hydro Ottawa pays the city, its sole shareholder, an annual dividend, which is then put toward funding municipal programs and services. Sometimes it comes in richer than budgeted.