Higher water rates loom for Calgarians; chamber exec calls fee hikes 'egregious' for businesses

Calgary council voted 9-6 on Tuesday in favour of water rate increases that would almost double average residential and business monthly water payments by 2030.

The average residential bill is $119 a month now. It is projected to reach $134 next year, $154 in 2028, $179 in 2029 and $207 in 2030. That is an increase of nearly $90 over four years for a reference household using 19 cubic metres a month, roughly 90 full bathtubs.

Councillors Kim Tyers, Dan McLean, Mike Jamieson, Landon Johnston, Rob Ward and Jennifer Wyness voted against. Mayor Jeromy Farkas voted in favour.

The chamber of commerce chief executive called the rate hikes "egregious" for local businesses, which are already facing significant cost increases.

Farkas said the city had virtually frozen water fees for the past decade. "For 10 years or more, we chronically underfunded our water utility," he said. He pointed to two ruptures of the Bearspaw South feeder main, which he attributed to deferred spending. "We are on the verge of failure if we do not right-size our investment in these essential infrastructure projects," he said.

The capital program is $6.5 billion, aimed at increasing capacity and redundancy and replacing most aging assets. Waterworks infrastructure is funded by customer user fees, not property taxes.

Coun. Dan McLean said there had to be an alternative. "It's just too much on top of what we're talking about with a property tax increase," he said. McLean proposed lobbying other orders of government or spreading the increases over a longer period.

Councillors had known about the proposed hikes for nearly a month before the vote. Earlier this month, the executive committee voted 8-2 to recommend council approve the 2027-2030 rates.