WATER FEES APPROVED

At the September 24 City of Kawartha Lakes Council meeting, Council adopted changes to the “Mandatory Connection By-Law.”

This issue has been circling Council for months. Essentially, properties within servicing boundaries, that are not currently connected to municipal water or wastewater are charged fixed rate fees by the City. Council had previously lessened the by-law requirements for these residents to connect to municipal services, allowing them to wait until such time as their drinking water well and/or septic system fails. In the interim, they were subject to fixed rate fees to help maintain the infrastructure until such time as they were required to connect.

Now, Council has voted to reduce these fees to $200 per year per service, to be billed quarterly beginning January 1, 2020.

Why should those not using municipal water and wastewater have to pay a fee? Mayor Letham said, “We have many examples of services that are paid for by residents and not actually used: everyone pays for roads and not everyone drives, we all pay for arenas and not everyone uses them, people without children still pay school board taxes. We can’t do selective taxing. We can’t offer the water/wastewater service without the fees to support it. This is compromise that will provide relief, but will also help to maintain the water and wastewater system.”

There are currently 134 properties that meet the criteria for mandatory connection.