Sydneysiders were facing a 50 per cent water bill hike. That's now been halved
Households will be spared steep bill increases after the pricing regulator halved those sought by Sydney Water, which had called for a 50 per cent hike to pay for much-needed infrastructure upgrades.
However, furious developers say the move to limit hip-pocket pain over the next five years will only undermine housing supply.
'You can't have more homes without more water infrastructure,' Urban Development Institute of Australia chief executive Stuart Ayres said.
The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal's (IPART) draft report includes an average 4.6 per cent increase, about $61, for each of the next five years before inflation.
As a state-owned monopoly utility provider, Sydney Water's pricing is set on five-year terms by the regulator. A final report is due in September and stakeholders are expecting little change to IPART's draft determination.
The 23 per cent hike is less than half of what Sydney Water proposed in a controversial submission to IPART in late November 2024. Household water bills would have soared by 50 per cent in the five years to 2030, including an 18 per cent rise in the first year alone.
Under IPART's revised proposal, average bills would increase from $1220 in 2024-25 to $1527 in the last year of the determination, excluding inflation. Comparatively, Sydney Water's submission would have resulted in an increase in the typical household bill to $1928 by 2029-30.
The hike was justified by the agency's then-chief executive Roch Cheroux as being essential to 'manage Sydney's water future', predominantly to ensure infrastructure was upgraded and expanded in line with the state's target of 377,000 new homes under the National Housing Accord.
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