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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSugar Creek Utility Co. wants the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to grant it rate relief for the 84-lot manufactured
housing community Riley Village.
It’s part of a larger dispute over whether the utility should bill the community’s residents individually or
through their homeowners’ association, as it does now.
The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor contends that the current billing arrangement has put the homeowners’ association
under strain, saying the association is shouldering the burden of more than $47,000 in unpaid water and sewer bills.
The association wants the utility to install water shut-off valves to individual lots of the Greenfield development and says
it is considering disbanding because its treasury is in the red.
The demise of the association would also have implications for other essential services it provides residents, such as road
maintenance and snow removal, the OUCC said in a filing with the commission
Attorneys for Sugar Creek responded that if the utility must handle billing, the only way to deal with non-paying customers
is to re-engineer the water infrastructure with shut-off valves, "which could require tearing down or relocating each
home
or other extensive property disruption," or, "to supply water for free to non-paying customers because the system
Sugar Creek
acquired out of bankruptcy was not constructed to allow for individual disconnections."
The IURC has scheduled a hearing for Nov. 17 over Sugar Creek’s request for a rate case.
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