By Alice Waugh

Water usage rates will be going up by 28% as of April 1, and the quarterly base charge will also go up from $35 to $50 for homeowners following a public hearing and Water Commission vote on February 25. The commission also voted to start assessing base charges by dwelling unit rather than water meter, but they decided not to implement that change for those in apartments and condominiums until next year.

The water usage rate hike is slightly less than the 30% that the commission was considering earlier this month. The Water Department is required to collect enough revenue to cover its operating budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2020 and to replenish its retained earnings, which have been depleted by unanticipated expenses. The proposed operating budget of $1.835 million for fiscal 2021 is 38% higher than this year’s.

The biggest change — and the one that drew about 20 residents to a public hearing on a weekday morning — will be felt next year by those who live in apartments and condo complexes, or multi-unit developments (MUDs). Until now, the base charges were based on the number of water meters at a given location, but MUDs almost always have more households than meters (see table below). For example, Lincoln Woods has 125 units but reportedly only five water meters. An exception is Oriole Landing, which will have one meter for every apartment.

The change is an effort to spread the fixed costs of water service across all users. Lincoln has 87 miles of water mains as well as a water treatment plant, a well, a pressure reservoir and other equipment that must be maintained, said Commissioner Ruth Ann Hendrickson. “No matter how much water you use, those fixed costs are required to be supported… this doesn’t cover the whole cost, but it gives us some stability.”

“Implicitly in the past, users who were not in multi-unit developments were subsidizing these costs by paying more than their share of the fixed costs,” Finance Committee member and Water Commission liaison Tom Sander said before the meeting.

The Water Commission is still in the process of finding out exactly how many units and water meters each development has. Preliminary estimates for the base charge increases for MUDs are based on dwelling unit numbers from the Board of Assessors, and the numbers of meters are “educated guesses” based on complexes where the Water Department has conducted checks, said Sander, who helped compile the numbers.

The commission was required by state law to set water rates for fiscal 2021 by April 1, even though it still lacks data about things like accessory apartments, or how many clients and meters there are in group homes in Lincoln.

“We don’t have that information,” Commissioner Michelle Barnes said. “If we can get more hard information on who we can charge, we’d be happy to receive it.” (One of the residents at the hearing said there are 67 registered accessory apartments according to the town building inspector, but that figure could not be immediately verified.) Barnes and her colleagues later voted to make ““best efforts” to identify all of the accessory apartments in town (some of which are not properly registered) and include them in the new per-unit charges when appropriate.

Attendees also complained about the lack of information in the notice of the public hearing, which was not specific about the fee structures to be proposed. Others noted that some condo associations or apartment tenants and landlords had not been directly notified of the impending hike. Hendrickson said much of that contact information isn’t available on the web, though one resident pointed out that the phone number for Farrar Pond Village is listed in the town telephone directory.

“It’s going to disrupt our community, and there will be turnover in units if that increase goes through,” said Lincoln Woods resident Alisar Cohen, adding that tenants currently see rent increase of 4–6% per year. “Those of us in the market-rate units will most affected, but there will be a spillover to the affordable units.”

Condo residents also protested the base-charge change, especially in light of the fact that most condominium associations have already had annual meetings and set budgets for the year. “This is almost the equivalent of having a septic failure or roof collapse—things at that catastrophic kind of level,” said Lincoln Ridge resident Bryce Wolf, who asked the commission to phase in the change more gradually.

The water increases last year and this year are coming at the same time as homeowners are grappling with significant property tax increases due to the $93.9 million school project. Another Farrar Pond Village resident noted that many of the development’s owners are seniors on fixed incomes.

Although the Water Commission discussed a phase-in plan for the base-rate change for MUDs, members ultimately voted 2-1 to approve the original hikes of 28% for water usage and the base-charge increase from $35 to $50 per quarter. “It’s a very big jump in a very short period of time,” said Hendrickson, who voted in favor of the phased-in plan before voting against the final proposal.

The commission also voted to defer billing for the billing change for multi-unit developments until January 2021 to allow time for financial planning by owners and tenants. That change will be reflected in the quarterly bill that goes out in April 2021, and that bill will include the charges retroactive to April 2020, when the other rate hikes are also taking effect.

Health care facilities (the skilled nursing unit at The Commons in Lincoln and the Care Dimensions Hospice House) will pay a base charge calculated by dividing the number of beds by 2.9, which is the average number of people per household in Lincoln.

“Lincoln is already on the high side and will be on the higher side when we raise rates,” Water Commissioner Michelle Barnes said. Her comparison of water rates in nearby towns showed that Lincoln will rise from $706 to $927 annually for customers using 50,000 gallons a year. The average for Bedford, Concord, Lexington, Sudbury, and Wayland at that level of water use is $542, with Lexington the lowest at $329 and Concord the highest at $850. Lexington and Bedford ($472) get their water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

Some of Lincoln’s overall costs reflect its steep price increases for tiers of water usage, an incentive for conservation. “The more you use, the higher the cost relative to other towns,” Barnes said.