Santa Monica Water and Sewer Rate Schedule: Commercial Accounts Face Five Years of Compounding Cost
Santa Monica adopted a five-year water, sewer, and recycled water rate schedule. The average customer impact is 12% per year, making water efficiency a budget priority.
Key Takeaway
Santa Monica adopted new water, sewer, and recycled water rates for a five-year schedule in June 2025. The city says customers will see an average 12% increase in water and sewer charges each year for five years, with funding tied to long-term water quality, resiliency, sustainability, reliability, reservoir rehabilitation, and replacement of aging water operations facilities.
5 yrs
Schedule
Water, sewer, recycled water
12%/yr
Average Increase
Water and sewer charges
40M gal
Reservoir Storage
Critical potable storage
$8.7K/yr
WaterForge Scenario
@300 kGal/month
What changed
Santa Monica adopted a five-year schedule for water, sewer, and recycled water rates. The city says the schedule is intended to maintain capital funding, keep pace with inflation, and support reliability and resiliency projects.
The important commercial point is compounding. A single 12% year is a budget issue. A five-year schedule can materially reshape operating expense for hotels, restaurants, multifamily properties, retail centers, campuses, and irrigated sites.
Commercial impact model
WaterForge models a 300 kGal/month Santa Monica account moving from roughly $3,630/month to $4,356/month under a 20% stress scenario, adding $726/month or $8,712/year. The official city average is 12% per year across water and sewer charges, so actual account impact should be calculated from the property bill.
A property paying $5,000/month today would add about $600/month after a 12% year, or $7,200/year. If that compounds over multiple years without usage reduction, the operating-expense effect becomes much larger than the first-year change.
What operators should do
Create a five-year utility forecast, not a one-year variance note. Use current water, sewer, recycled water, irrigation, and meter-size line items to create low, expected, and high scenarios.
Smart Valve should be evaluated as an inflation hedge in Santa Monica: reducing metered volume now lowers the base that future scheduled increases compound on.
Commercial Water Cost Alert
Model Your Facility's Exposure
Use your current monthly bill or kGal usage to estimate how much metered-volume reduction could offset this local rate pressure.
FAQ
How much are Santa Monica water and sewer charges increasing?
Santa Monica says customers will see an average 12% increase in water and sewer charges each year for five years under the adopted schedule.
Why did Santa Monica adopt a five-year water and sewer schedule?
The city cites long-term water quality, resiliency, sustainability, reliability, routine capital projects, inflation, reservoir rehabilitation, and replacement of aging water operations facilities.
Sources
Turn Rate Pressure Into a Water Savings Plan
Smart Valve helps commercial properties reduce metered volume before higher rates and surcharges multiply the cost of every gallon.
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