The mayor says he’s turning down the tap.
Brooklyn homeowners are off the hook for an unpopular water fee and will get a one-time, $183 credit on their bills this summer, Mayor DeBlasio announced in Bay Ridge on April 25. The Ridgites who lent their 79th Street front yard to Mayor Tall and his gigantic faux water bill for the announcement said they are happy to get a little back.
“The more money in our pocket, the more money we can spend on the kids, the better,” nine-year neighborhood resident Maia Elfont said.
A little more than 204,000 Brooklynites owning one- to three-family homes should see the credit on their bill, so long as the Water Board approves the proposal. About 12,000 such homes are in Bay Ridge, according to census figures.
Since 1985, the city has charged the Water Board a fee for renting municipal infrastructure such as reservoirs, aqueducts, and treatment plants — a cost that the board passed on to customers in the form of higher water rates, according to the Independent Budget Office.
And it charged more than it needed to cover “rent” — essentially debt obligations on capital works projects — and transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in excess into the general fund, according to the budget watchdog group.
DeBlasio will not levy the fee in 2017 or 2018, he said, pointing out that every hizzoner in the last 30 years — himself included — has been soaking New Yorkers.
“For decades the city has been using the water bill as a cash cow for the general treasury, that’s not right,” he said. “The water bill should be for one thing and one thing only — the cost of water.”
The New York City Water Board is proposing a 2.1-percent rate increase beginning in July, the smallest hike since 2001.
Water Board hearing on water rates at St. Francis College Founders Hall (180 Remsen St. between Clinton and Court streets Downtown) at 7 pm on May 11.
