Homeowners in Winnipeg are bracing for a trifecta of higher fees as bills for property taxes, sewer rates and garbage are all on the rise.
On top of the $121 property tax hike for the average home already approved this year, residents are now facing a $224 dollar sewer rate increase for 2025 to help pay for the $3 billion North End Sewage Treatment Plant.
Homeowners are also facing an additional $160 for garbage and recycling.
“It’s a lot of money,” said Gage Haubrich with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“It’s going to be added to the bills of households every month and it’s going to make them less easy to afford and it’s going to hit the pocketbooks of those taxpayers, and it comes at a real difficult time.”
The mayor and councillors are trying to reduce the financial pain.
The water and waste committee voted to hold the sewer hike to $167 for the rest of the year, while seeking help from other levels of government for the sewage plant to keep future rate hikes down.
The waste fee will pay for recycling, garbage service, green carts, and help tackle a $28 million deficit over the next four years.
All those costs will stop coming out of property taxes while creating a new, self -sustaining utility.
Water and waste committee chair Ross Eadie is pushing to spread the deficit payments over a longer period to lower costs
“I’m looking at how we can do a recovery over 10 years versus four years,” he said.
Homeowners Chris and Tamie Archer are okay with a new utility model for waste, but they’d like the city to answer to an independent oversight body like Manitoba Hydro does.
“I think in the long term it keeps costs down and keeps everything much more transparent,” Chris said.
If approved, the new waste utility fee would also cover the replacement of lost or damaged garbage and recycling carts.
