A rate increase proposed by sewer operator M1W draws ire of residents and businesses.

With an estimated $111 million in infrastructure costs coming down the pipeline over the next decade, Monterey One Water, the region’s 30-year-old wastewater utility, has proposed hiking its monthly rates, igniting protests from business interests and residents.

M1W’s board of directors are set to approve the new rate schedule at a June 7 budget meeting. If approved, ratepayers will see a 47-percent jump in their bills after July 1. By 2025, rates will be 122-percent higher than today.

Standing in the way is whether enough ratepayers protest the increase through the Prop. 218 process, which blocks a rate increase if more than 50 percent of ratepayers file objections. M1W spokesperson Mike McCullough says the utility has received 858 protests so far, less than 2 percent of the 60,000 ratepaying accounts.

Janine Chicourrat, chair of the Monterey County Hospitality Association and managing director at Portola Hotel, calls the rate hike “exorbitant.” She says a jump from $9.80 per room per month to $21.75 by 2025 would cost the 379-room Portola tens of thousands of dollars.

“At the end of the day, I’m not against raising rates, but you have to be reasonable,” Chicourrat says.

East Garrison resident Christopher Lang is organizing neighbors to protest the increase. He says rate increases are another way residents are getting squeezed out of housing.

McCullough says the increased revenue is needed to maintain the utility’s $750 million in infrastructure assets. For too long, he says M1W and its board operated on a pay-as-you-go philosophy for maintenance. For 14 years, between 1992 and 2006, the utility kept rates the same. Now, much of the infrastructure is deteriorating all at once and the utility needs to finance a long-range capital improvement program.

Beyond the $111 million in capital improvement projects lined up over the next 10 years, McCullough says M1W has also identified another $172 million in necessary maintenance costs.