{"id":9566,"date":"2025-12-16T17:13:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=9566"},"modified":"2025-12-16T17:13:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T21:13:39","slug":"rate-shock-cited-in-denial-of-halifax-water-hike-as-queens-awaits-water-rate-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2025\/12\/16\/rate-shock-cited-in-denial-of-halifax-water-hike-as-queens-awaits-water-rate-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rate shock’ cited in denial of Halifax Water hike, as Queens awaits water rate ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Members of the Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board held a water rate hearing in Liverpool in November. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

A decision limiting Halifax Water rate hikes may have implications for the Region of Queens as it waits to hear a decision on its application to double water rates.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board on Tuesday approved a reduced rate increase for the Halifax region\u2019s water utility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Halifax Water had asked for a combined 35.6 per cent rise in rates, to be implemented over the first three months of 2026. Provincial regulators called that \u201crate shock\u201d for customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The board denied Halifax Water\u2019s request to include deficit elimination in its application. Removing that would lower the second rate increase by about 10 per cent.<\/span><\/p>\n

It ordered Halifax Water to return with a modified rate proposal within a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Board finds that the magnitude of the proposed rate increases, implemented over the first three months of 2026, constitutes \u2018rate shock\u2019 for its customers. For residential customers, the combined, compounded rate increase was proposed to be 35.6% from January 1 to April 1, 2026,\u201d the regulator wrote in the decision released Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Halifax Water provided a reasonable explanation about the need to increase rates to cover some of its higher costs due to inflation and other cost pressures, the Board finds that other requested costs were not justified or that the utility overestimated some of those costs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Halifax and Queens water rate applications are very different. For example, Queens is asking regulators for a combined 102 per cent increase over three years. It also has equipment and infrastructure problems Halifax doesn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the Region of Queens hearing in November, municipal officials warned that without an immediate 85 per cent hike, the whole water system could be in jeopardy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They said the Region of Queens water utility has been undercharging its 1,200 customers in Liverpool and Brooklyn for years. And because of that, the infrastructure is outdated and needs to be repaired or replaced.<\/span><\/p>\n

The water utility is supposed to pay for itself through what it charges customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The region says it needs to jack up rates immediately to stem a $516,000 deficit. If rates don\u2019t rise, that deficit is expected to swell to more than $3 million by 2027\/28.<\/span><\/p>\n

But during the hearing, board members challenged the region\u2019s past accounting practices and their claims from the last time they asked for an increase in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n

Board chair Bruce Fisher opened the hearing by characterizing the region\u2019s application as \u201crate shock\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs there\u2019s a fairly significant rate increase, the board did issue an additional set of information requests. Essentially, we wanted to have additional information on the record in advance of this hearing so we could discuss potential options to deal with what I would say is rate shock.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The only intervenor in the hearing, the Queens Community Health Board, opposed the region\u2019s application, saying that granting such a large increase would be rate shock for customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fisher also told the region later in the hearing that the size of their request was unusual.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t typically see 100 per cent rate increases.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the hearing, the board had asked for more evidence from the region to support its application. That was received on Nov. 28.<\/span><\/p>\n

The board aims to file its decisions within 90 days after they receive final evidence. So the decision in the Region of Queens water case will likely be available in late February.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/queenswaterrateshockdec1625.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A decision limiting Halifax Water rate hikes may have implications for the Region of Queens as it waits to hear a decision on its application to double water rates. The Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board on Tuesday approved a reduced rate increase for the Halifax region\u2019s water utility. Halifax Water had asked for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[48,3580,39,3232,3663,24,1374,3661,3662,1153,366,1734],"class_list":["post-9566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-brooklyn","tag-bruce-fisher","tag-liverpool","tag-nova-scotia-regulatory-and-appeals-board","tag-rate-shock","tag-region-of-queens","tag-region-of-queens-water-utility","tag-regulator","tag-utilities","tag-water","tag-water-rates","tag-water-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9568,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9566\/revisions\/9568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}