GREENSTONE — Municipal councillors in Greenstone have endorsed a number of changes to how the municipality administers water services in the amalgamated community.
At its most recent meeting, council gave its approval to a number of alterations, including reducing the number of buildings that require water meters for billing purposes, switching to a monthly billing cycle instead of the current quarterly schedule and establishing a higher rate for people to temporarily shut off their water.
That last item, according to a city staff report to council, will largely affect people who leave for warmer climates in the winter. “Many property owners that leave for the winter use this service resulting in reduced revenues for the municipality,” the report said. Currently, people pay a “nominal” fee of just over $88 for a temporary shutoff.
City staff are recommending it be changed a larger amount, similar to a proposed monthly infrastructure renewal fee that is still slated to go before council.
“The expectation is not unlike the purpose behind the infrastructure renewal fee,” Greenstone’s corporate services director Darcy Chapman told council. “It's to make sure that there's fairness and equity and that we have to maintain those pipes 12 months of the year, whether they're being used or not.”
Mayor Jamie McPherson told Dougall Media after the June 23 meeting that what the amount will be is scheduled to be back before council in August.
“The proposal tonight is that those people who travel … seasonally and turn the water off pay, roughly $90 for whatever amount of time they're gone,” he said. “We are suggesting that the cost for that infrastructure is still there.”
Chapman said the overall water and wastewater financial plan is scheduled to be presented in the fall and “realistically” be adopted for the beginning of 2026.
Other changes endorsed by Greenstone council included switching to a monthly billing cycle, which administration’s report said will help break up the larger quarterly cost (the 2025 base rate, the report said, is $582.71) “which can be a significant amount to pay at one-time.” After an account is three cycles in arrears, the municipality shuts off the water, which means, by that time under the current policy, shutoff happens when an account is at least $1,748 overdue.
“By this stage, it becomes very difficult for most property owners or tenants to pay the full outstanding amount to avoid disconnection (even with a payment agreement in place),” the report said.
The new policy would, for example, issue a bill for January’s consumption during the first week of February, with it being due at the end of February. “In this process, everything is captured within the month including all adjustments, turn on/off, final billings from sale of property, arrears turn offs, etc…, eliminating the need to reissue bills with a new due date and having to flag/suspend accounts,” the report said.
Finally, council endorsed removing nearly 100 existing water meters from properties, with the rationale that they don’t consume enough water to go over the minimum threshold necessary to trigger additional water consumption charges.
Currently, the report said, there are 182 water meters — that will be reduced to 88.
“In larger centres, usually, as you're getting near capacity for your (water) treatment plants, you'll put meters in and then people then have the tendency to reduce usage,” McPherson said.
“In Greenstone, we no longer have meters on residential (properties) and the proposal tonight was to actually take two thirds of the meters out that we have in commercial establishments because they're not using the minimum amount.”
Chapman told council the municipality’s various water plants still have “significant capacity.”
The staff report to council said taking these meters out will help offset the increased workload for municipal staff that will come with the switch to monthly water billing.
-With files from Justin Hardy