Johannesburg - If you own a townhouse in Joburg, you pay twice as much for sewerage services as someone who owns a flat or even a small free-standing property - and the prices are going up.
There are thousands of townhouse complexes billed like this, regardless of the size of the units.
For sewerage and sanitation services, the City of Joburg charges R134.57 a month for a house on a property of up to 300m2 or a flat of any size.
The charge for a townhouse unit of any size is R261.95 a month. This is the same as the charge for a house on a property of 301 to 1 000m2.
This means a one-bedroom townhouse unit with one toilet and bathroom, which is not a free-standing unit, is charged twice as much as a free-standing house which might have two or three bathrooms and a swimming pool.
A block of 100 flats would pay R15 327 a month.
A complex with 100 units would pay R26 195 a month.
These charges are all due to increase by 14 percent from July 1 when the new municipal financial year starts. The charge for flats and small houses goes from R134.57 to R153.27 and complexes and bigger houses go up from R261.95 to R298.36.
The proposed tariffs are open for public comment before the city’s budget for 2016/17 is finalised.
The city authorities say the charges are based on the cost of running the service, but property agents who manage complexes say the tariffs are unfair.
Marco de Oliveira, the managing member of Solver Property Services, called it “grossly unfair for them to be charging double your average residential home”. Renprop managing director Chris Renecle said owners of sectional title properties were being held to ransom and authorities should take into account economic problems for homeowners like the hardening of bond rates.
Renecle said complexes were trying to keep levy increases down to just 6 to 8 percent on average. “This is because the owners of units in these complexes are ordinary working folk who would only be getting salary increases within that range. “
“They therefore cannot afford to spend more on their single most important asset.”
He said complexes would end up cutting investment spending like repairs and maintenance to pay the bills.
The sewerage tariffs fall under Joburg Water, the city’s water utility. For the purposes of these tariffs, townhouses and units in complexes are defined as “multiple dwellings” or “any arrangement of premises that comprises more than one dwelling unit including semi-detached houses, simplex units, townhouses and any other arrangement of residential premises excluding a block of flats”, said Joburg Water spokeswoman Eleanor Mavimbela.
“There are approximately 8 000 registered accounts billed under this tariff category.”
Mavimbela couldn’t say how many of those 8 000 were complexes, but the standard billing arrangement is for complexes to be registered as a single customer.
When asked about the apparently inequitable tariff, Joburg Water said: “The sewer charge is based on cost recovery over the stands throughout the city. The city does not take into account the number of people living in each unit to determine this charge, as this may vary too often.”
“The number of toilets per unit is also not an accurate measure of how many people use the sewer network.”
“The cost remains similar, irrespective of the area where the service is provided.”
“In most cases, a high-density area is likely to produce more sewage than areas that are more spread out.”
“The cost recovery for this category happens to be the same as in the case of a 300 to 1 000m2 category.”
Joburg Water did not explain why the costs were so different for flats and complexes.