Water utility rates are going up for City of Kelowna customers both this year and next.
At Monday's meeting, council approved 2 per cent increases for 2017 and 2018, to both user rates
and the water quality enhancement fee.
Utility Services Manager Kevin Van Vliet says people living in multi-family residential units will see improvements to their rates.
"We charge them a very slight amount more per cubic metre of water than we do at our other residential properties, and that is a source of confusion and frustration for some people," he said.
"So this bylaw proposes that multi-family residential properties pay the same per-cubic-metre water cost as all other residential properties."
Van Vliet says another change is the way farmers in the region are billed for water usage.
"We currently, and have in the past, charged a quality enhancement fee to these customers. So by removing this charge, we're acknowledging that agriculture doesn't require good clean water for crops, they just require water," he said.
"And it will result in a significant savings to the agricultural customers. It doesn't really affect our bottom line very much, because we only have a handful of them."
Currently, about half the population of Kelowna is serviced by the city.
Van Vliet says the planned increases will still more than offset those slight decreases.
"Our revenues for the water utility are about $12 million per year, so a 2% increase is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said.
"The changes here are in the $40,000-50,000 per year total reduction, which offsets our hundreds of thousands of dollar per year increase."
The hike to the water quality enhancement reserve is to keep money aside to replace aging infrastructure in the next few decades.
The 2% increases will go into effect in May.