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Con Ed has agreed not to raise residential electical rates for two years - is this true for the co-ops rates for public areas? If so, please consider this in yrou budget planning for 2014.
In addition,, real estat taxes are down - while your assessed value may increase - this should offset a good portion of costs related to that.
I was told by an engineer who is familiar with the energy environment in NY that co ed is only maintaining the energy distribution portion of their rates and that the cost of the fuel used to produce the electric or steam or the cost of the natural gas will vary based on market conditions.
As far as real estate taxes are concerned, our building is experiencing a rate reduction but has a higher valuation so we will actually have an increase in our real estate taxes of a few percent. Get used to it. This is how the city will be funding all those new programs. Taxing the rich just doesn't bring in that much since many of them can shelter income and avoid paying.
Hi Molly,
That is good news even if it is only on the delivery side of the bill. However, in my co-op, the water/sewer bills are a higher cost amount than the electric costs (even after sub-metering). Those costs are going up a projected 5.6% in July or approximately twice the annual inflation rate. Source here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwaterboard/pdf/blue_book/bluebook_2014.pdf - see page three.
If you read further in that document, approximately 40% of the Water Board’s yearly income goes to debt service (interest), and since they continue to borrow to fund projects (at about $2 billion a year), that percent will only continue to grow. The Water Board has nearly $29 billion of bonds outstanding or about $3,500 per city resident (not just working adults).
This is one of the reasons why costs keep going up (another example is the costs resulting from the union contracts).
I say this only to emphasize that a lot of the expense co-ops pay are not under the control of the co-op boards, management companies or (gasp) even sponsors but the responsibility of our elected officials and those they appoint. If you want to cut costs, let us all be mindful of who we collectively elect.
Cheers!
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Molly, thank you very much for the valuable information. Please give me some website where I could go to verify this, so I can forward this data to my fellow sufferers, down-trodden coop owners in this wretched coop. Please write to me directly to my email: carminis@outlook.com
Carmen Bejarano
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