Introduction to the Multiple Conservation Program (MCP)

New York City building owners get ready to pay significantly more for your water and sewer charges. The New York City water board will be ending the current "frontage" flat rate billing system on July 1, 2009. At that time, multiple dwellings with six or more units that are currently billed under the "frontage" system will either be forced into direct meter-based billing or to a new flat-rate system called the Multiple Family Conservation Program (MCP). This may add significantly to your building's water/sewer expenses, especially if you are not engaging in water conservation efforts. Residential multifamily buildings must qualify for the MCP, which has both water efficiency and billing requirements. Every property wanting to participate must enact assorted water efficiency measures meant to ensure that any high bills are due to high population density in the building and not due to inefficient equipment or leaks.The current deadline for applying for the MCP rate is December 31, 2008. The MCP rate is currently $650.44 per dwelling unit per year. What are the qualifications for the MCP? The property must be metered, have at least six residential units, and be current on its water/sewer charges, which means either a zero balance or current with a binding payment agreement and timely payment of all new bills. Any commercial tenant in a multifamily residential building that uses a significant amount of water must be separately metered at the building owner's expense and that tenant shall be billed based on a meter in the future. Only consumption from residential apartments qualifies for the MCP rate. This group of commercial occupants includes laundromats, food-related businesses, taverns, medical facilities or other occupancies that are judged to consume more than a residential unit. This means piping the supply for the commercial tenants so the water passes only through a separate commercial occupancy meter. What are the MCP's water efficiency requirements? 70% of all apartments must have toilets, shower heads, and faucets that meet current water efficiency requirements. When apartments that do not meet the standard are vacated, they must be upgraded with water-efficient equipment. These standards are no more than 1.6 gallons per flush for toilets, 2.5 gallons per minute for shower heads and 2 gallons per minute for faucets. If the building has a central laundry room- all clothes washers must be exchanged for models that do not consume more than 9.5 gallons per cubic ft. of capacity. The building must also have its own program that regularly inspects apartments for leaks and repairs them, and responds to tenant reports of leaks. The DEP will perform leak inspections of all buildings before approving their MCP applications and will re-inspect them periodically in the future. To be continued in the January 8, 2008 edition of the New York Real Estate Journal. Evan Lipstein is the founder of Save Water NY and president of Hyline Safety Co., New York, N.Y.