Universal water metering: the final blow.Universal water metering Water metering is the process of measuring water use through water meters. Prevalence Water metering is common for residential and commercial drinking water supply in many countries, as well as for industrial self-supply with water. : The final blow It isn't any secret that the real estate industry has been the favorite whipping boy whipping boy surrogate sufferer for delinquent prince. [Eur. Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 942] See : Substitution of New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. politicians for as long as anyone alive can remember. It began with rent control, continued with broken promises of decontrol de·con·trol tr.v. de·con·trolled, de·con·trol·ling, de·con·trols To stop control of, especially by the government: decontrolled oil and natural-gas prices. and still to this day prevents owners ill most cases of charging market rents while paying market prices for whatever goods and services In economics, economic output is divided into physical goods and intangible services. Consumption of goods and services is assumed to produce utility (unless the "good" is a "bad"). It is often used when referring to a Goods and Services Tax. are required to maintain habitable habitable adj. referring to a residence that is safe and can be occupied in reasonable comfort. Although standards vary by region, the premises should be closed in against the weather, provide running water, access to decent toilets and bathing facilities, heating, premises for their tenants. All of the above is old hat to most of us in the industry. But now comes the specter of placing a single water meter in every multi-family house, including co-ops and condos and if implemented that action may well be "the Final Blow." Why? Read on and see what havoc universal single water metering will cause. Open to Liability: Each owner will be forced to pay for whatever amount of water is consumed by their tenants without a rent offset. Each co-op or condo owner will be responsible for his building's total usage, losing all control of his own usage cost Market Value Destabilization de·sta·bi·lize tr.v. de·sta·bi·lized, de·sta·bi·liz·ing, de·sta·bi·liz·es 1. To upset the stability or smooth functioning of: : A prospective buyer will he unable to evaluate with any reasonable precision what the cost of his water charges will be. Currently, most property owners pay a flat water frontage bill to New York City which like real estate taxes is spelled out in an exact dollar and cents amount. Forget, if you can, this charge has increased over 400 percent in less than a decade. But at least a buyer knows the figure to put in his calculator in trying to determine a bottom line. No way will a market price he obtainable with an open-ended liability of an endlessly spinning single water meter in the basement of every apartment house. Owners Ability to Control Water Usage: *Size of family *Doubling up of families in hard times *Illegal roomers-prevalent in larger apartments *Drug or crack apartments or other illegal uses of apartments, resulting in high traffic and unlimited water usage *Weather conditions such as an extremely hot and prolonged summer resulting in understandable but still uncontrollable use of additional water *Who knows how many other variables are not covered not covered Health care adjective Referring to a procedure, test or other health service to which a policy holder or insurance beneficiary is not entitled under the terms of the policy or payment system–eg, Medicare. Cf Covered. in items 1 through 5, which would result in the endless use of water by tenants not personally accountable for its use. Co-op and Condo Owner's Inability to Control Water Usage: *Size of family *Size of apartment -- number of bathrooms *Appliances in each apartment (dishwasher, washing machine (storage) washing machine - An old-style 14-inch hard disk in a floor-standing cabinet. So called because of the size of the cabinet and the "top-loading" access to the media packs - and, of course, they were always set on "spin cycle". ) *Prompt attention, or lack thereof, to running toilets, leaking faucets or leaking pipes *Carelessness regarding water consumption Tax Base Will Collapse: Valuation of real estate is based on the reasonable expectation of a positive cash flow. When major uncertainties exist, especially a major uncontrollable expense such as universal single water meter in multi-family properties, buyers will only purchase on a "worse case scenario." Obviously, that will decimate dec·i·mate tr.v. dec·i·mat·ed, dec·i·mat·ing, dec·i·mates 1. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group). 2. Usage Problem a. property values and deflate (file format, compression) deflate - A compression standard derived from LZ77; it is reportedly used in zip, gzip, PKZIP, and png, among others. Unlike LZW, deflate compression does not use patented compression algorithms. the real estate tax base. The City of New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of over a short period of time will find continued shortfalls resulting in deeper cuts in services and massive employee layoffs. In Rem [Latin, In the thing itself.] A lawsuit against an item of property, not against a person (in personam). An action in rem is a proceeding that takes no notice of the owner of the property but determines rights in the property that are conclusive against all the : A corollary of the above will be massive surrenders of property to The City of New York through the "In Rem" procedures when water metering charges inevitably exceed owner's fuel bills. There are already specific examples of water metering charges reaching $750 to $1,000 per unit, as opposed to current frontage charges reaching approximately $275 a unit in multi-family housing. Fallacy fallacy, in logic, a term used to characterize an invalid argument. Strictly speaking, it refers only to the transition from a set of premises to a conclusion, and is distinguished from falsity, a value attributed to a single statement. of Equating 1-4 Family Homes with Multi-Family Properties Regarding Metering: Philosophically, conservation is only viable when the ultimate consumer pays directly for the service in question and obviously this will only be the case ,in one-to-four families homes which are not rent-controlled or regulated and where the owner can pass along any increased water charges directly to his tenants on a proportionate basis depending on the size of the apartment. In the case of a one-family house, the owner is solely responsible for water usage and considerable savings would follow. It is insanity to assume the same scenario in a multi-family property where only the owner pays for water consumption of his tenants. What incentive would any tenant have in saving his landlord money? Quite to the contrary, many tenants would delight in running their water as irresponsibly as possible to financially cripple their landlord. Only the politicians in the City of New York who dreamed up this nightmare seem to disagree. New York is not Camelot and just one visit to landlord/tenant court most certainly proves that point. Willful Waste of Water by Tenants: *Tenant being evicted by their landlord could run their water 24 hours a day for months before the owner soaking his way through the maze of landlord/tenant regulations obtains his final order to evict. *The ultimate horror would be a rent strike with every tenant not only withholding rent but collectively running water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This article is only a primer of what both "The City" and Owners will face if this ill-conceived program of installing a single meter in a multi-family housing is brought to fruition. Obviously, I have not covered all the negative aspects of this pending plague. Hopefully responsible New York City officials who are planning the final implementation of this program will rethink this disaster waiting to happen. The precious housing stock in our City of New York will surely be on the cutting edge of bankruptcy for the second and probably final time in less than a generation. Perry Gault n. 1. (Geol.) A series of beds of clay and marl in the South of England, between the upper and lower greensand of the Cretaceous period. is vice president of the Owner-Management Division of the Bronx Board of Realtors. |
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