New Yorkers have until the end of April to apply for a city-sanctioned waiver for overdue water bills.
Effie Ardizzone, the deputy director of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said during the Bronx Community Board 7 Environment and Sanitation meeting Tuesday night that she encourages those eligible to apply.
“This program is especially important for low income homeowners who may be eligible for debt forgiveness,” she said.
The city’s Amnesty Program is designed to alleviate financial burden on qualified customers with an excess in water and wastewater bills because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the DEP, the program allows customers to have their accrued interest either reduced or forgiven after they pay their principal balance by April 30. Put more simply, it’s the forgiveness of late payment and interest charges.
This is different from the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program, which allows for the forgiveness of up to $5,000 for overdue water or sewer bills for qualified individuals. For more information about that program, visit otda.ny.gov.
Ardizzone said the Amnesty Program is open to a diverse range of property owners — from building owners to single-family household owners.
There isn’t an application for the program, according to the DEP website. To get late charges and accrued interest paid for, customers must determine their eligibility by entering their account number into the Amnesty Look Up Tool and make a payment before the end of the program on April 30. The program is available to accounts with overdue balances as of Jan. 29.
For more information call the DEP at (718) 595-7000 or visit the website at https://www.nyc.gov/site/dep/index.page.
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com or (718) 260-2535. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
