ASHEVILLE – For years, the city’s residential water customers have subsidized its commercial and industrial users, with residential users shouldering a higher cost for the city’s water supply than was found to be equitable.
That’s according to a new water rate model study from Raftelis, a consulting firm out of Charlotte. It first brought preliminary results to the city’s Policy, Finance and HR Committee in September, which confirmed that rates need to be realigned to equitably reflect the cost of providing service.
Recommended increases are steep, particularly for wholesale, manufacturing and commercial customers. Wholesale customers could see their bills more than doubling across the next three years. For certain commercial and industrial customers, a typical bill could see hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in increases.
Why the increase?
The study comes after recent concerns by council members and residents, who noted that the current rate structure presents an imbalance for residential customers versus commercial users, with the latter getting breaks for greater usage, and facing lower rates than those of single family residential.