Courts Blocks New York City Rate Increase

A judge slapped down a new water billing proposal from New York City, throwing a wrench in the city’s plan to hikes rates and offer a rebate this summer.

“Justice Carol Edmead’s order prohibits the city’s Water Board and Department of Environmental Protection from moving forward with the plan to raise rates 2.1 percent on July 1 and issue a one-time $183 credit to ratepayers in one- to three-family households,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

“The planned 2.1 percent rate increase would have been the lowest in 16 years but also the third consecutive increase since [Mayor Bill de Blasio] took office in 2014,” the report said.

“The one-time rebate would have represented between 17 and 40 percent in savings on annual bills for more than 664,000 one- to three-family homes citywide, including 110,462 on Staten Island,” the Staten Island Advance reported.

Edmead called the city’s plan “unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion,” according to the Journal. She said the plan was “designed to accommodate the mayor’s political agenda and provide a windfall to certain homeowners,” Real Estate Weekly reported.

An official with the city’s legal department said it plans to appeal the ruling, according to the Journal. “We continue to maintain that the Water Board acted appropriately and in accordance with the law,” he said.

A spokesman for de Blasio said: “The mayor’s intent is quite clear and he remains undeterred: He wants to return money to the pockets of homeowners.”

The Rent Stabilization Association (RSA), a group of landlords for rent-stabilized apartments, had sued the city water board over the rate hike.

“We are pleased that the judge saw what we believed to be the case — that the Water Board acted beyond its lawful authority in favoring owners of 1-, 2- and 3-family homes to the detriment of apartment building, condo, co-op and other owners,” said RSA President Joe Strasburg, per Real Estate Weekly.

“This was yet another example of a mayor who is prepared at every turn to impose additional costs on the backs of owners of rent-stabilized apartments while simultaneously denying them the fair rent increases they need to pay these increased costs,” he continued.

To read more about water rates visit Water Online’s Funding Solutions Center.