County looks for public comments on new water bylaw
Oxford County is looking to hear from the public on their proposed new water by-law.
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Oxford County is looking to hear from the public on their proposed new water by-law.
The draft by-law covers water and wastewater operations, billing and collections practices.
The changes would see the property owner’s name be on the bill rather than the tenant for rental units. Unpaid water bills would be moved to the property owner’s municipal tax bill along with a charge of $25.
The proposed by-law would also add a flat-rate charge of $25.85 to shut off water in a vacant residence and see charges from special services be sent specifically to the customer.
“Oxford County maintains a high-performing water and wastewater system that is safe, reliable and cost-effective,” Lynn Buchner, Oxford County’s director of corporate services, said. “On the business side, after comparing our practices with those of other municipalities, we saw that we could better structure our service fees to meet the long-term costs of maintaining the system and that we could more fairly distribute costs across our customer base so that fees for special circumstances are being charged to the customers who require those circumstances.
“In the end, this helps ensure we are running a sustainable system now and into the future,” she added.
The current setup has the Town of Tillsonburg and ERTH Corporation servicing Oxford County municipalities.
A September staff report said holding property owners responsible for the costs would allow the county to transfer unpaid accounts to property tax bills instead of sending unpaid bills to a collection agency. The report stated $119,841 was written off in 2018 for 356 accounts.
“This will help (landlords) maintain control over the water usage while also supporting the tenants who might have to unfortunately deal with a lax landlord who doesn’t go out and repair a water leak in a timely manner,” Buchner told the Sentinel-Review. “This way they’ll be motivated since they’ll be responsible.”
An independent review presented to council in February showed centralizing water and wastewater billing could save the county up to $1.4 million over the next five years.
Council received their last report of the changes at their Sept. 11 meeting. The media release also said the county’s sent notification to landlords via mail in September.
Comments received before Nov. 15 will be taken into consideration before council receives the county’s final report.
The by-law, if approved, would come into effect March 1, 2020.
To give comments, people can visit: www.oxfordcounty.ca/speakup
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