Oak Ridge North approved a new fee schedule at the Jan. 23 meeting of city council that included the first water and sewer rate increases since 2015.
After extensive discussion at its Jan. 9 meeting regarding how to restructure water and sewer fees for the city, the council agreed to move forward by increasing the base residential rate for water to $15 for up to 3,000 gallons of usage and increasing the tiered rate by $1.01 per 1,000 gallons. Commercial water usage increased from a base rate of $34.49 to $50.
The city also switched from a tiered sewer fee to a flat fee based on median usage. The council agreed to move forward with a flat fee of $30 for customers using zero to 7,000 gallons of sewer, and $45 for anything over that.
Also passed was a resolution to include the word for debit cards to be assessed a processing fee on payments to the city. A credit card processing fee is already charged on all credit and debit cards on payments made to the city; however, the fee did change depending on whether a credit or debit card was used. The resolution now assigned a flat 3% fee on debit and credit card transactions from payments to the city.
