Health & Fitness
A White Plains Water Billing Inequity
The effective rate for billing water usage for an apartment in White Plains appears to be twice (or more) that of a house with the exact same usage.
A friend and neighbor of mine, Cliff Blau, who is also the treasurer of our co-op at 16 Lake St, recently brought to my attention an inequity which arises from how White Plains bills our co-op and probably most (all?) other apartment buildings for water usage.
This year, everyone in my co-op will pay about $4 in water usage and "sewer rent" charges per ccf (100 cubic feet, about 750 gallons) of water used, compared to the $2 per ccf a homeowner would be charged...about 2/1 for every gallon used.
White Plains uses a progressive scale in billing water usage: the more you use, the higher the rate you pay; this promotes water conservation, something most of us would approve. The problem is, all residents of an apartment building are billed at an effective rate based on the total water usage of the entire building, instead of the average usage of each tenant. And it gets progressively worse, the more apartments there are in the building. The math is simple : the more apartments there are in a building, the more water will be used. The more water used, the higher the effective rate using the progressive scale.
For example : let's say a building comprised of 75 units uses an average of 70 ccf in a year (the average house in White Plains uses over twice that volume : 160 ccf). For this, in a single year they would be billed over $21,000 in water usage + the sewer rent (a 19% surcharge enacted in 2010), for an average of $285 an apartment. For the same amount of water (70 ccf), a house would be billed $133, a good deal less than half ($285-$133=$152). Put another way, the home owner would pay at only the lowest rate on the progressive scale : $1.90 per ccf; the apartment resident an effective rate of $4.07, 214% more.
In a larger building, say of 125 units, the discrepancy grows : $303 per apartment, $4.33 per ccf, (227% more).... a larger bill just because he happens to live in a larger building !
A caveat: this is what happens if White Plains calculates usage rates for tenants based solely on building usage. It's my understanding, that this is the process they use for all residential buildings, and so far it has proven true... even individual metering for apartments doesn't affect the inequitable outcome... but there may be exceptions. Some feedback on your own personal water bills would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, this is nothing new... it's been going on for years. It's just that the water expense has become a more noticeable item on our co-op's budget. From $5,800 in 2001 to $11,000 in 2009 to $17,500 this year, and probably $20,000 next year. Still, compared to our fuel expense, not that big a deal. On the other hand, there's nothing you or I can do about the price of heating oil... even the water bill itself... NY City is driving that train. But the inequity in the billing... that's up to the Mayor and the Common Council... and we apartment dwellers get a vote there.
It's a simple case of equal treatment : a city shouldn't charge its residents double for a basic necessity such as water just because they live in an apartment building and not a house. Yeah, the price of everything is going up and the city is strapped for cash, but charging someone more for water based solely on the number of apartments in his building ? Well that's just fundamentally wrong.
For a more details, including links to a couple of spreadsheets that will let you run your own numbers, please visit the web site at :
